♪♪♪ announcer: Funding for "The Hinkley Report" is made possible in part by the Cleone Peterson Eccles Endowment Fund.

Jason Perry: Tonight on "The Hinkley Report."

High-profile incumbents declare victory and prepare for a new majority in D.C. Voter turnout has a major impact on local elections, and some races remain too close to call.

And on the national stage, our panel discusses the emerging themes of the election and how they will impact Utah.

♪♪♪ CC BY ABERDEEN CAPTIONING 1-800-688-6621 WWW.ABERCAP.COM Jason Perry: Good evening, and welcome to "The Hinckley Report."

I'm Jason Perry, Director of the Hinckley Institute of Politics.

Covering the week we have Glen Mills, anchor with ABC4 News; Lindsay Aerts, reporter with KSL News Radio; and Ben Winslow, reporter with Fox13 News.

So much to get to this evening.

For those of us who watch politics, we just kind of had our Super Bowl.

What a week, right?

Still recovering.

I want to break down because we had the nation literally watching at least one race in Utah for a while that I want to get to on this Senate race, because there's some themes that emerged, not just in that race, that may extend nationwide that I want to get into.

And, Glen, I want to start with you for just a minute.

This race, Senator Mike Lee and and Evan McMullin, it's-- right now, as of airing, with votes still to be counted, about a 13-point lead for Mike Lee.

Talk about that spread.

Is it what you expected?

Glen Mills: My network all along for the vast majority I would say had this race at a double digit race all along.

So, I think it's pretty close to where people I've talked to and have discussed this with pegged it to be.

We looked at it, and at times it really seemed like a close race.

It obviously got all that national attention, and it is still the closest race for Senate that we've seen in the state of Utah since the 1970s, so it really is in that sense, but when you take a look and say it's still sitting at a 13-point lead, that's a lead that incumbents across the country would love to have at this point.

So, it's still a pretty wide victory.

Jason Perry: Lindsay, talk about why that might be the case.

What Glen says, right, the last Democrat Utah had as a senator was Frank Moss, and he left in 1977, beat by Orrin Hatch.

People talked about this being sort of an experiment, talk about this, because the Democrats--looks like they did an experiment here, no Democrat, but they supported independent.

Lindsay Aerts: Yeah, and I think it just is disappointing for that group of people who hoped that an Evan McMullin type candidate, an independent candidate, but who also shared some conservative values, could really do well in this state.

You know, clearly we haven't had a Democrat elected in a long time to a statewide office, and so they thought if we could find someone who could bridge the gap, perhaps this could be it.

And that 13-point lead that Glenn spoke about, I think it's just really a knife to the heart for these people who are not in the majority party, who wanted a change to Utah.

Jason Perry: Glen--I'm sorry, Ben, you talked with a lot of people about this particular race, and I'm kind of curious, the Democrats that you've talked to, is there--is there any, like, remorse?

Is there, like, a buyer's remorse issue right here?

Would they do this again?

Ben Winslow: I think it depends on the Democrat that you're talking to.

There are certainly some who are a little bit salty that this went down in the first place, that their preferred candidate did not make it out of convention as a candidate at all.

But then, like, I talked to Salt Lake County Mayor, Jenny Wilson, who's arguably the state's most powerful Democrat right now.

She's the highest elected office holding Democrat, certainly, and she said that she likes the idea of an independent statewide candidate.

And if you're going at it from that lens, the candidate Evan McMullin over-performed, did better than any other opposition party candidate has done.

Look at the numbers that you have here, even with a 13-point deficit as of right now, it's still better than a lot of other candidates have done in election cycles in the past.

So, maybe it's a bellwether of the future.

I don't know, it's going to remain to be seen.

I think it's gonna be a hard sell to get Democratic Party delegates to do this ever again.

Glen Mills: I agree with that, because if you look back at when this happened in convention, 43% were really opposed to this, and this was a very contentious, heated debate at convention, and a lot of those 43% went on to work against McMullin in the campaign, saying there's no way they're going to vote for him.

So, I don't see Democrats going down this road.

Ben Winslow: But you still can't look at the numbers and say that is a Democratic Party nominee going to do even as well as Evan McMullin did this election cycle.

Lindsay Aerts: But you have to sort of look, too, at the historical Democrats who have won statewide.

I have a colleague who's kind of been analyzing that, and he looked at, you know, Democrats who have run in the past statewide, they did better than Evan McMullin did with Democrats.

So, Evan McMullin needed about 90% support among Democrats to pull this off, and then needed some independents and some Republicans as well, and he didn't get those numbers.

And my colleague surmises that perhaps if he had run as a Democrat, he could have pulled in some of those Democrats who were disenfranchised because of what they did with the party.

Ben Winslow: But is that at the loss of Republicans?

Because you're picking up Republicans who may not necessarily like Mike Lee, you've got the unaffiliated, which is the second largest voting bloc in the state right now, and that's who you also pull.

Lindsay Aerts: Well, that was the line McMullin had to walk, right?

Bridge this gap between am I-- I'm trying to pick up Democrats and people who lean more liberal, and I also have to walk the fine line of we're in a Republican state, and I need some of those Republicans with another conservative candidate to come over to my side as well.

Glen Mills: And some of those names that we've discussed were watching this as a beta test to see how this would perform, how it would work.

But the message to me, and you may disagree with this, the message to me is that at this very moment the Senate seats in Utah still go through the GOP primary.

That is clear after this election.

Jason Perry: Glenn, what does this say about the two party system?

I mean, you have to look at this, we're talking about right now, will the Democrats do this again, is there any commentary in this result on where Utahns are about party?

Glen Mills: I mean, there's definitely frustration with the two party system, but there's also the reality that that's-- those are the two parties that still control politics here in the United States of America.

So, I think on the surface there's this idea that, yeah, we would like to, you know, maybe shift away from this.

We see several candidates on the ballot for the United Utah Party.

One did fairly decent in Beaver County on the commission, but the rest of them aren't really registering a whole lot across the state.

So, I think there's this idea that wouldn't it be wonderful to move away from this?

But then the reality starts to sink in that clearly that is still where the power lies.

Jason Perry: So, Lindsay, we haven't seen all the results yet.

We don't have all the numbers in.

There's--that's wide enough margin in this race that it won't change it, but one thing that some of us are watching is really where the Democrats came down, how many of them showed up to vote?

What does that signal and once we see those numbers for this experiment?

Lindsay Aerts: Yeah, well, it signals that those who were perhaps hoping that this--that Evan McMullin could be a candidate who could bridge this gap in a very heavily Republican state would turn out.

So, wherever they turned out is perhaps where he was doing better, right?

And he was kind of reaching to their message.

Because at the end of the day, Evan McMullin still espoused conservative values.

And he went that independent route to try to bridge that gap, and it's interesting to perhaps look, and I haven't done a deep dive in this, but to look at areas where he pulled more Democrats, because that signals that he reached those people across the aisle.

Jason Perry: So, Ben, it looks like Mike Lee, Senator Mike Lee, as part of his reelection lost in three counties, which was not--was not the case for him in his last election cycle.

Talk about kind of the Mike Lee perspective right now.

He got close--the closest race he's had, one of the closest in history.

How does he look at this race?

What is his going away thinking?

Ben Winslow: Well, I'm sure he's still very happy with the result, which is he's still in Senate for the next six years.

But you do look at some of these counties, and you do wonder if there is starting to be a little bit more of a shift, if this is something to pay attention to for other candidates down the road, even down ticket candidates.

Salt Lake County, for example, might be a little more purple now than we thought it was before.

You know, especially when you look at the numbers, and right now Evan McMullin is winning Salt Lake County, Utah's most populous county, but it's not enough to make up for the rest of state.

Utah County is a force, and you still have to pay attention to that, and you have to pay attention to Davis and Weber counties.

And Washington County is also a force that you have to reckon with.

And those voting blocs are very active.

Those counties do see pretty decent numbers, and they tend to vote a certain way right now.

But it is--I look at this just as wondering if this is going to start seeing a slight shift.

Are we--are we starting to maybe the red is getting slightly more purple, at least in some races?

And maybe it comes down to just candidate preference.

I like this person, I don't like this person, and that's just how people vote.

Glen Mills: I think we saw a lot of that this election, to be honest with you, especially in Salt Lake County.

We know turnout was high among Republicans, and I think we saw this across the country, too, though, that there was a sense that Republicans were willing to cross over lines, party lines, because they didn't necessarily like one candidate, or, you know, two candidates in another race.

So, there was some cross ballot voting across the country and here in the state of Utah.

Lindsay Aerts: I always wonder, too, how many Republicans are left over from the Huntsman effect, right?

Where in 2020 they switched to register as a Republican so they could vote in that primary when Huntsman ran against now Governor Cox, and perhaps they never switched back.

And I think maybe the Evan McMullin camp was banking on some of those when we saw these high turnout numbers you speak of in Salt Lake County.

Perhaps some of these Republicans were just left over registered Republicans who were actually more independent or not even affiliate--not even aligned with the Republican party, but did it.

And that just didn't seem to be the case.

Glen Mills: Well, we saw that in the primary this year too.

Democrats went over to the Republican party to vote for Becky Edwards in the primary.

So, there definitely was a factor in that.

But I really think that when you take a look at the numbers, there were traditional Republican voters who were willing to cross the line and vote for Democrats.

Jason Perry: It seems like that was the case.

I'm kind of curious since you brought up, Lindsay, the Huntsman effect too.

That was a pretty important endorsement for Mike Lee pretty close to the end.

Do you think that had an impact on those Republicans you were talking about?

Lindsay Aerts: Well, perhaps, yeah, because--but I don't know if they were so aligned with Huntsman himself or just kind of wanted that more moderate candidate than Cox was at the time.

But the Huntsman endorsement in my mind was expected because Mike Lee and Huntsman long go back together, they worked together, right?

So, they have this long history, and even though Huntsman says he doesn't support him in certain areas, they still have always done this.

I support you, you support me, so it's kind of expected.

Jason Perry: Since you're both kind of talking about who we like and maybe it was about who we like more than just party for some, Ben, there are some pretty negative commercials out there.

Talk about the impact of the kind of commercials we saw in this cycle.

Ben Winslow: I think what you did see is the attack ads did work, that over time it chipped away at the sort of enthusiasm for Evan McMullin that started out when he launched his campaign, because he did very well in his presidential run here in Utah.

And there was a lot of enthusiasm when he announced and started campaigning for this seat.

But, you know, over time the attack ads just--I--you can't help but wonder if they had an impact, because they appeared to just chip away at his favorability.

Jason Perry: Yeah, those people--oh, go ahead, please.

Glen Mills: I was just gonna say, this is a really interesting moment for Evan McMullin right now, because he's now been in two races.

You mentioned the 2016 presidential run, now this run for Senate, and in, you know, generally speaking, he was a protest vote.

In 2016 he was an alternative for Republicans who didn't want to vote for Trump, and now in 2022 there was a lot of, I'm not voting for Mike Lee, I don't necessarily choose Evan McMullin, but I'm gonna vote for him because I'm not voting for Mike Lee.

So, he now has two unsuccessful races where for the most part he was this protest vote.

Jason Perry: Interesting.

I want to talk about some things that drove people to the polls, and, you know, we'll talk about what has happened historically in terms of the makeup of the-- of Congress and the House and the Senate.

But, Lindsay, it seems like there was an interesting battle, the--if you talk to Republicans about what they're most interested in, it was inflation, it was the economy, Democrats, it was abortion, which drove a lot of turnout.

If you look at this race and if the Supreme Court had not made the ruling they did on Roe v. Wade, would we have seen a different national outcome in terms of who was driven to the polls?

Lindsay Aerts: Yeah, perhaps, I think those two issues were really the key for both sides, right?

And interestingly, when you look at the national race, and we're still undecided in the balance of power in both the Senate and the House, we have outstanding races at this moment, but I was listening to some analysis that was kind of breaking down that this driving of who turned out was state by state.

It didn't span the country.

So, for example, in Michigan, where abortion was literally on the ballot, they were voting on whether or not to make that part of their constitution a protected right, Democrats did very well in that state.

Abortion was threatened in that state.

But in a state like New York, where it is still a Democrat controlled state, however, there was no threat to that abortion risk there, then Republicans did well in that state.

But that did not seem to translate nationwide.

Here in Utah, a red sweep, right?

Economy the number one issue that voters are saying impacted them.

And so, it just didn't translate across the country.

It seemed to be a little bit more regional.

Jason Perry: Glen, it does seem like some initiatives and propositions, those things when they come forward, do drive people.

We've seen that in Utah.

Glen Mills: Yeah, I mean, back in 2018, the last midterm election, we saw turnout 75%.

We had those initiatives for medical marijuana, Medicaid expansion, and redistricting.

And I think we're going to see these turnout numbers trickle up more.

Like, Utah County has said they're going to be up in the 60s, Salt Lake County may get up into the 60s as well, but still, turn out vastly different in 2022 from what we saw in 2018.

Ben Winslow: Pot drove polls in the last one, that was far and away what brought people out to vote.

And this time there just wasn't the enthusiasm.

Voters that I talked to, and we saw it play out on election night, people were just like, yeah, I guess I gotta vote, yeah, sure, fine, whatever.

And then at the last minute everybody just gets in their ballot, you know.

But I didn't see any, like, I got to get out and vote, oh my gosh, I need to do this.

You know, it was like, if I must.

Glen Mills: And you have to wonder the impact that the Senate race had on that, because Democrats did not have a candidate at the top of the ticket.

So, how energized were they across the state?

Ben Winslow: Republicans were very energized though.

It seemed like what I saw this cycle is Republicans did want to make sure that they voted, and they voted for Mike Lee.

Lindsay Aerts: Also, and we looked at some historical data over the last 20 years on midterm elections, and it seems like 2018 was the outlier because of those statewide initiatives that you all mentioned.

Turnout in looking back at this data, anywhere from 45% to 55%, so it seems like this year is on par with that when we get the final turnout numbers, but 2018, those statewide initiatives are really what drove things.

That one seems like the outlier.

So, it is hard to compare this election to the last election.

Jason Perry: We always talk about the importance of showing up, but we've seen in Utah just how important that is, and what counties that you just talked about seem to be controlling so much of this.

Let's talk about our house races.

Ben, every single one of our members of Congress got over 60%.

Ben Winslow: Oh yeah, and it is--I think what you saw was the impact of some of the redistricting there.

You know, the Salt Lake County getting split into four doesn't necessarily create a competitive race.

I would argue probably at this point Third District is now the most competitive, because that takes in a little bit of Park City and a little bit of Moab, which typically lean more blue, and so that might be your closest competitive district, and Congressman Curtis did very, very well in that race.

Glen Mills: That, to me, is one of the biggest storylines from this election.

We no longer have a competitive congressional district in the state of Utah.

Every single one of the incumbents is up big, I believe by at least 30 points or more.

Lindsay Aerts: And I'll just add that you used to see House District Four being the most competitive race in the state, and it just wasn't, Burgess Owens up by a significant margin.

So, that is really where the impact of this redistricting, I think, is felt the most.

And in terms of, like, debates, et cetera, none of that impacted Burgess Owens at all.

Lindsay Aerts: Nope.

Glen Mills: Not in the primary though, either, if you remember that.

He didn't show up for the Utah Debate Commission debate in the primary, and he also didn't participate in the GOP sanctioned debate.

Jason Perry: Yeah, so when you look historically, Glenn, because I'm always curious about this, when you no longer have some races that are competitive, and those four might not be for a little while, what kind of impact have you seen that that has on people's willingness to engage and even to vote?

Glen Mills: Well, like we're talking about, how energized is a voter if they don't feel like their voice matters?

And I think that probably played at least some role in the turnout that we saw in this election.

But as we've mentioned, not only at the top, but it goes down the ballot as well.

When a certain group isn't energized, it hurts down ballot, and we're seeing that at the State House level as well.

There are two Democratic incumbents right now who are losing their races, and it appears from the most recent drops we've had from the election results that it continues to go in their opponent's favor.

Jason Perry: I want to get to those local races, but I want to talk about one interesting--it was a little bit of a surprise to me, Ben.

Constitutional Amendment A. Ben Winslow: The little amendment that couldn't.

Jason Perry: That couldn't, that's right.

Talk about that for a minute, just what it did, and maybe your analysis as to why that one went down.

Ben Winslow: It was interesting, because Constitutional Amendment A, for those of you who may not have understood it on your ballot, was basically--and a lot of people didn't understand it on the ballot.

They didn't know what it did.

It allowed for the legislature, when they meet in special session or call themselves into special session, to spend more or cut more depending on the situation that they're in, from 1% to 5%.

And what was really interesting about this is no one had a campaign in opposition to this, no one even spoke in opposition to this in the voter guide, and it failed by some big margins.

What you started seeing and what I started hearing from voters, I did a story on it explaining what it was, and then I started hearing from voters about it, that they just didn't like it.

They felt like it was too much for the legislature, too much of a power grab, the legislature has got enough power as it is, so they voted it down.

It just was amazing to see on election night this thing that I thought would likely pass, just because there was no opposition, and it went down in flames.

Lindsay Aerts: And I wonder if the legislature learned their lesson from that, where they did no campaigning for a pro-Amendment A campaign, right?

They did no education, they did no get out the vote, if you will, to say, you should support this because our state needs it, right?

And so, I wonder if they learned their lesson a little bit where perhaps if they just leave things to chance, assuming that voters won't be as up to date, perhaps, on what they should be when it comes to local government, that they'll just be able to pass through expanding their budget powers, if you will, and that didn't happen this time.

Ben Winslow: But what I heard from voters was they feel like they should work with the governor, that the legislature should, if you want to spend this much money, if you want to do this, you need to work with the governor to go into a special session and do this.

Mind you, voters, in the previous election cycle, voted to allow the legislature to call themselves into a special session.

Jason Perry: They were coming on the heels of that, Glenn.

I thought it was an interesting comment from President Stuart Adams, because people asked him after this about the--this amendment going down, and he just said, "While some may have seen this amendment as an opportunity for the legislature to gain more power," people did talk about that, "in reality, it was a way to better assist Utahns during serious emergencies."

Glen Mills: Right, and we're just coming off that, so that's how they are looking at it.

Like, they say when they went into special session to address the pandemic that they just didn't have the money they wanted to to be able to do that successfully, so that's kind of the way that they are looking at it.

But also another important point here, if you remember back in 2018 when those initiatives all passed, they made big changes to them.

So, will they try to do something along the lines in Amendment A through law now?

That's yet to be seen but something to watch for.

Jason Perry: Can we hit some of these local races?

Because this is very interesting.

Let's just fire away, what races are you watching?

Some of them are still not--not completely accounted for.

Lindsay Aerts: Keeping an eye on Salt Lake County because of the races that Glenn mentioned earlier, the two on the west side, Magna area and out by USANA, those two right now, Republicans are leading in both those races.

They're only separated by a couple hundred votes, and if Republicans hold onto both those seats, that expands the super majority in the House, in the State Legislature to, I believe it's 61-14 split.

And it allows Republicans to pick up a total of three seats.

There's another race in there that Republicans already picked up.

So, I'm keeping an eye on that.

I've also had a conversation with Steve Handy, and both Steve Handy and Trevor Lee.

Steve Handy lost his write-in campaign.

He is, obviously, understandably bummed about that.

He's proud of, you know, what did he get, some 4,000 some-odd write-in votes, that's significant for a write-in campaign.

The closest, perhaps, a legislator has ever come to winning a write-in campaign.

But at the end of the day, it just wasn't enough to compete with a candidate whose name was on the ballot.

Ben Winslow: I'm keeping an eye on House District 10 in Weber County in addition to those.

Rosemary Lesser was put in, in the latest round of redistricting, into some communities that tend to lean a little more red, and so as the Democratic incumbent, she's still ahead right now, at least in the return so far.

So, she's holding onto her seat at least as of right now.

Of course, a lot more ballots still to count.

Glen Mills: The only elected Democrat in the state legislature outside of Salt Lake County is Rosemary Lesser, another point there.

Salt Lake County Council at large seat B, keeping an eye on right now.

Current State Representative Suzanne Harrison, whose seat was basically redistricted out of the House, and that's why she decided to run for County Council.

She's up on incumbent Richard Snelgrove right now.

It appears that she has a lead that will be sustained.

He would have to get a pretty good portion of the remaining vote to be able to win that.

And then just the other county seats where we saw Democratic incumbents really come out with strong showings, in Sheriff Rivera, District Attorney Gill, and then the County Clerk's seat as well, last, I believe, Lannie Chapman was up by, like, 34,000 votes.

Lindsay Aerts: And that race was interesting to me to watch and see as these Salt Lake County returns come in, will they fall Republican or Democrat?

Because in the County Council race, Suzanne Harrison is ticking up in her lead as the Democrat.

Meanwhile, those races over on the west side, I mentioned the Republicans are holding onto that lead.

So, it's not appearing to be favoring either party in that regard, but it'll be interesting to see.

I do think Suzanne Harrison at this point has a big enough lead.

She'll probably hang on.

Ben Winslow: Overall, it was a good--if you're in the Legislature, it was a good year to be an incumbent, because regardless of party, voters seem to just say, I like the person that's representing me.

I'm fine with this person.

Jason Perry: Well, not--on top of that, about 32% of them had no opponent, which was also good for those.

Ben Winslow: Not insignificant.

Jason Perry: Just for one moment, some leadership races, Glen.

Our local legislature, House and Senate, met on Thursday night, and they voted on new leaders.

Glen Mills: So, no change in the Senate, you're going to be very familiar with the leadership team there.

One slight change in the House leadership with Representative Lisonbee coming up in the ranks of leadership.

The other three will be carrying over.

But the big story there was the Senate Minority Caucus.

For the first time, an all women leadership team.

And there was a little bit of shift there in the top seat where Senator Luz Escamilla will be taking over that, and Senator Mayne will be stepping down just a tad.

But historic election that we saw there.

Lindsay Aerts: Also really interesting that Dr. Jennifer Plumb is in Senate Democratic leadership as a brand-new lawmaker.

There's only six Democrats in the Senate, so there's not a lot of them.

Ben Winslow: And three of them are new, though.

Lindsay Aerts: Okay, that's fair, there's not a lot of people to choose from, but a brand-new lawmaker, first time lawmaker, freshman lawmaker now in Senate Democratic leadership.

Jason Perry: And just in our last couple of seconds, Ben, so the one big change there in the House, Val Peterson, who was Assistant Whip, now going to go to executive appropriations, and Karianne Lisonbee.

Ben Winslow: Right, she moved into a leadership role, obviously prevailing in the internal elections that they hold.

She was Rules Committee Chair, so what I'm also watching and for people who are watching this show who get really into politics, I want to see who's the next Rules Committee Chair.

Jason Perry: We will watch that closely.

Thank you all for your great insights this evening, and thank you for watching "The Hinckley Report."

This show is also available as a podcast on PBSUtah.org/HinckleyReport or wherever you get your podcasts.

Thank you for being with us.

We'll see you next week.

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