♪♪♪ 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."

As elections are finalized, our panel takes a deep dive into what the results mean for Utah.

Redistricting enters the spotlight as the courts consider a case over Utah's maps.

And a prominent leader speaks out on the national stage while recent polling reveals a surprising shift in who Utahns would support in the next presidential election.

♪♪♪ 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 Doug Wilks, executive editor of the Deseret News; Kate Bradshaw, member of the Bountiful City Council; and Robert Gehrke, columnist for the Salt Lake Tribune.

So glad to have you all with us this evening to talk about politics, which has been so interesting this week, a lot's happening.

I want to just get to what's happening from the last election cycle, starting with you, Robert.

The election results have been certified, the lieutenant governor's put out the numbers, and it looks like our turnout for the state of Utah was 64.2%.

Robert Gehrke: Yeah, I mean, I think that's pretty solid turnout.

I think, you know, two thirds roughly in a midterm election is--it's a little difficult because we don't really have a good baseline.

Four years ago we had all of those ballot initiatives on the ballot that brought a lot of people out in the midterm that wouldn't normally vote.

And four years before that we were just starting this experiment with vote by mail, so we don't really have a good baseline for a midterm election.

But two thirds, I think, is about what you would expect in a normal election.

You know, presidential elections, we can get up to 80%, 85%, but midterms are a little bit lower.

So, I think that's--I think that's something that, you know, we can be pleased with.

And, you know, that there were counties that were expected to be a little bit lower.

I think everybody kind of thought Salt Lake County was lagging behind, but at the end of the day they were right there with the rest of the state.

Jason Perry: Yeah, so, okay, like, Salt Lake County, about 65%.

I want to talk about these populated counties, Utah County at 62%.

In the last couple election cycles we've seen sort of the power of those populated counties that people do show up.

Kate Bradshaw: You're absolutely right, and, you know, along the Wasatch front, the turnout was about the same.

You know, mid-60s% for each of the most populous counties.

But, you know, when you see bigger turnout in Utah County or Salt Lake County, an election cycle, that can move things.

I mean, it can be helpful to certain candidates if Utah County turns out or more helpful to a different candidate if Salt Lake County turns out.

You know, there's a lot of voters in those counties as compared to some of our rural counties that just have a much smaller population.

So, you can see why campaigns are often very much focused on the big counties along the Wasatch front.

Jason Perry: Absolutely right.

Doug, it does get to this question that we had going into this election cycle.

Every once in while you have candidates that were asked the question, will you accept the results?

What's interesting, that becomes sort of a political question you ask as part of the campaign, and we asked a question, Hinckley Institute with the Deseret News, about the confidence people had in this election.

What's interesting, if you ask Utahns, the number was 87.3% confident in the election results.

Is that--is Utah an outlier in that regard?

Doug Wilks: I don't know if they're an outlier, but certainly there's confidence in the elections in Utah.

We have the benefit of starting vote by mail before it became anything controversial on the national landscape.

When you look at Utah as compared to, say, Arizona, Arizona continues even today to have some controversy and lawsuits for Maricopa County.

So, we should be proud of that, we should be proud that we can execute it well, we certified the election, the lieutenant governor's office looks at the elections, and, yes, we need to ask the question, will you support the election?

I suppose this year we needed to ask that, hopefully maybe not, you know, two or four years from now.

Jason Perry: Let me ask you, Doug, the Deseret News did an editorial, and I want to read from that, because it gets to our republic itself.

And let me read that in a comment about this from the Deseret News.

"We hope this current trend of near hysteria over alleged voter fraud is coming to an end.

The steady drumbeat of accusations is harmful to the republic, and so far is entirely without merit."

Doug Wilks: Yeah, there's been no evidence of voter fraud.

Now, people take issue with that because there might be an isolated incident, but nothing that can change an election.

And it becomes a distraction.

We want to focus on the candidates or on a proposition or on any kind of measure that will move, you know, the nation forward and locally forward.

So, we feel like it's a distraction, it needs to end, and we're happy to put our weight behind that.

Jason Perry: And when it comes to this, Kate, as you know, you've run for office, and you've seen--I just want a little comment about this, because there's a lot of people looking into the turnout right now to see what the impact of sort of these negative campaign issues really had on that.

When you look at these results, did you take anything away from that?

That the negative campaigning helped or hurt the turnout?

Kate Bradshaw: You know, I do think negative campaigning, we want to say it doesn't work.

I do think it works.

Unfortunately.

It's wearing, it's wearing on people, especially people who might be undecided, to hear that constant negative drum beat and inserting doubt.

I do think that sometimes if you're not super excited about your options on the ballot, that can mean that you let your envelope, you know, sit on the counter and other mail piles on top of it, and you don't get it turned in on time, or you're not, you know, first into the poll because you're really passionate or excited about a candidate.

And we may have seen that in the race at the top of the ballot this year, that people weren't-- if you were a diehard, you got that ballot in early, and then a lot of people lagged.

But I do, I wish that it said something about us that negative campaigning didn't work, but I think it works everywhere.

Robert Gehrke: I think she's right, I think she's right.

And I think it's particularly in this election where we had four congressional races, none of which were very competitive, if you get turned off by that Senate race because of all the negative campaigning, you're much more likely just to, you know, toss that ballot in the trash.

But I do think there's a lot of credit that's deserved for the county clerks who ran these elections.

I mean, you remember in Utah we run 29 separate elections, and the county clerks were really proactive leading up to this election to say, hey, if you have questions about how we run the elections and how we make sure the ballots are secure, come on down, we'll show you how to do it.

We'll throw the doors open, let the sunlight in, and let people see for themselves.

And so, if you do that, and then you still have questions, well, then you're--you know, then maybe you're never going to be convinced, but they were very proactive, very open about this.

Lieutenant governor was very open about this, and I think that showed, I think that shows in the numbers that you cited there.

People are very, very pleased with the elections, and maybe we're giving too much attention to those that, you know, are raising these doubts, because as Doug mentioned, they can't come up with any proof.

They can't even come up with a cohesive theory about how the elections are stolen, whether it's, you know, hacking by computers or dumping ballots in, they can't--they can't come up with a cohesive theory.

So, maybe we're giving too much attention to them, and we just need to kind of move on and say, look, we--you know, the vast majority of Utahns are confident in the outcome and the way we conduct our elections in the state.

Jason Perry: Let's get into where some of this started, because this has been a week when former President Trump has been in the news a lot, and, Doug, I want to start with this dinner, because it gets into this thing about election security and the results of the elections.

But we had our own Senator Mitt Romney had some things to say about this, so I want to play this in just a moment, but set this up for us, because former President Trump had a pretty controversial dinner, particularly with his guests.

It was, you know, Kanye West, you had Nick Fuentes; a lot has come from that.

Talk about what that was, and let's talk about the results afterwards.

Doug Wilks: Well, it's the former President of the United States meeting with a white supremacist and meeting with someone who's been anti-Semitic, and that's a bad look.

Senator Romney called him out for that, as have many others.

Nothing has stuck to President Trump very much, right?

He's overcome many controversies, it doesn't seem to move, but we're seeing a little movement with this, because if you're having dinner with a Holocaust denier, that really could be a bridge too far.

And it's, quite frankly, it's outrageous.

Jason Perry: It caused a lot of controversy and a very quick response from many, including our own senator, Senator Mitt Romney.

I want to play this audio of what he said, and, Kate, if you'll give us a comment about what he said after.

Mitt Romney: I think it's disgusting to invite people like that to meet with a former President of the United States.

I think there's--it's been clear that there's no bottom to the degree to which President Trump will degrade himself and the nation.

reporter: Should he apologize?

Do you think that more Republicans-- Mitt Romney: Oh, he doesn't--he never sees anything wrong in anything he does, so this is characteristic of his approach, which is either say it was a joke or say he didn't know what was happening, but that doesn't fly, obviously.

This is something which degrades him, frankly, to do what he's done, and it's something which diminishes the country as well.

It's very unfortunate.

Kate Bradshaw: Jason, I 100% agree with Mitt Romney.

He was spot on on a couple different points.

One, I think he's absolutely right about former President Trump's actions and the appalling nature of this dinner.

He's also right that the president--the former president never apologizes, never takes responsibility for his actions.

Trump is a master at pointing to something else or some other diversion and moving on.

He--so, Mitt is right on everything in that particular quote, as far as I can see, that, you know, to expect that Donald Trump will recognize this is--as problematic is probably not going to happen.

That doesn't mean, though, that it's not important, absolutely, to call it out, and I'm proud of Mitt Romney for being willing to, you know, call a spade a spade.

Jason Perry: So, Robert, what's interesting is you look through even this last election cycle, there are some candidates who were heavily endorsed by former President Trump, and, you know, some of those candidates did not do as well in the election, you see what happened with this dinner and this response, what are you hearing from people that you're interviewing about the power of that name now and if anyone wants to be associated with it?

Robert Gehrke: Yeah, I mean, I think everybody recognizes this last election was not a good one for Trump-backed candidates.

And the breakup is sort of underway, I think, with the former president.

There's been this sort of tension in the party, you know, this tug of war about who is going to be, you know, in control of the future of the party, and for a long time it looked like Trump was the guy.

And now after this past election and some of the hijinks like this dinner that have come up since, I think his grip on the party's really slipping.

And, you know, we saw a lot of Utah legislators, Utah elected officials jumping on board with Ron DeSantis right after the last election because the DeSantis won in Florida fairly easily.

I think you're gonna see that continue, that exodus continue out of the Trump camp, and they're going to be looking for somebody else, somebody who doesn't necessarily have the baggage that Donald Trump does and can lead the party without sort of this cloud hanging over it all the time, and the antics that create this diversion and distraction for the party.

Doug Wilks: You know, you also have Nikki Haley and a few others that are now trying to test the waters and see what they want to do.

Jason Perry: Well, let's talk about that, because we just did a poll with you and the Deseret News, and we asked this question.

It's a little ways out till 2024, but the answer to the question was this.

In the--if the 2024 Republican presidential primary were today, that's how we get to this answer a little bit, who would you vote for in--of Utah?

And so, I know it's a little ways out, you know, but 24% of Utahns said Ron DeSantis, and interesting to break that out, 33% of Republicans said that.

But you mentioned Nikki Haley was at 4%, but interestingly, Liz Cheney was at 16%, but Donald Trump was at 15%.

So, people are testing the waters, but talk about what that means, because that's not a number we would have seen just in years past.

Doug Wilks: Well, my honest reaction is I don't know what it means at this point in time other than Utah has kind of swung.

They didn't really like Donald Trump the first time around.

The second time around they said, well, maybe the ends justify the means, and they talked about putting judges on the Supreme Court.

Now they come back and say, boy, we really--we want someone conservative, but we don't want Donald Trump, and they're looking for--they're looking for a lifeline.

If I had to guess, that's what I'd say, they're looking for a candidate they can back that's not Donald Trump.

And what happens years from now, they're going to have to assess.

Kate Bradshaw: I want to say, it feels like the Utah Republicans are interested in dating other people.

You know, we're going to play the field for a little bit.

There are some--there are some, you know, attractive folks out there that we want to check out, but it's early.

You know, will Governor DeSantis's star continue to shine with Utahns even though, you know, Florida's quite a distance from us.

Will some of these others come on?

But I think you're very much seeing, you know, the breakup, as Robert described, and then this interest in kind of playing the field for a little bit.

Jason Perry: But what did you make--because you're an elected official, and, you know, there are a bunch of elected officials in Utah that actually signed a letter saying, "We would support Ron DeSantis."

Kate Bradshaw: There definitely was an effort, yes, to collect signers of Utah elected officials, Republicans and those from non-partisan office, to kind of draft Governor DeSantis to declare early.

It's definitely an effort to signal "not Trump, let's tee up somebody else" because of that anticipation that President Trump would announce that he wanted to run again.

They didn't necessarily hit their target mark of the goal of the number of signers onto that letter that they had aimed for, and I think that speaks to people are still wanting to see who's out there.

I mean, the midterms were, you know, kind of disappointing for Republicans, and picking that next standard bearer is really important.

And so, being ready to declare you're already in on somebody this early, I think you're seeing some people that are saying, "I'm waiting to see if there's a different rockstar that's going to rise up."

Jason Perry: Let's talk about that for just a moment, because we have even some differences of opinion even with our own members of our Senate that are representing the state of Utah.

And I mention this because, Robert, if you don't mind answering this one, we have a student question that was submitted on this very question when it comes to Senator Romney, Senator Lee, and former president.

Steven Lehnhof: Hi, I'm Steven Lehnhof, and I'm a junior here at the University of Utah.

Following Senator Romney's recent comments on former President Donald Trump and his 2024 presidential bid, it is clear that our two senators from Utah, Senator Romney and Senator Lee, have very different views on the former president.

I'm interested to know your thoughts on how you think this will affect Utah's political climate in the run up to the 2024 presidential elections.

How do you think our two senators's starkly different views on the former president will affect Utah voters, Utah politics, and the Utah Republican party in general?

Thank you.

Robert Gehrke: There's a lot there.

But I think, I think it kind of goes back to what I was saying before, I think the party has this sort of crisis of conscience now.

They have got to figure out what they're going to be in the Utah Republican party going forward, because, you know, it had been the party of Trump, and is it going to continue to be that?

It seems like it's probably not.

We saw in the last Senate election, Senator Lee got endorsed by Donald Trump three different times during the course of this and never made a peep about any one of those three endorsements, because he knew it was going to be a liability.

So, I don't think Trump necessarily has the gravitational pull in Utah, as the poll would indicate, that he does in other places.

But I think it's also-- there's--Senator Romney has a clear problem too, because his votes to impeach President Trump in the past, his criticism like we saw here today, is going to be a liability for him if he decides he wants to run in 2024.

There's already people lining up trying to get, you know, take a shot at him because it's really--it's cost him credibility in the conservative wing of the Republican Party, this criticism of Trump over the years, I think.

Kate Bradshaw: Don't you think, Robert, like, you know, the turnout we saw between Mike Lee and Evan McMullin, it shows you that rift inside inside Utah, inside the Republican party.

I mean, obviously a lot of people crossed over to vote as well, but I think as the student pointed out, you've got this interesting split, and it's very much demonstrated by our two senators.

And but neither is maybe pulling the majority of the state with them.

So, we sit at this interesting divide.

Jason Perry: Absolutely right.

Doug, we asked a question about Senator Romney, kind of gets to this divide, because we, in our poll, we asked whether or not Utahns thought he should run, because this does give an indication, his comments about President Trump, what kind of impact that has on him and his electability in the state of Utah.

So, we asked what Utahns thought about this, and it was very interesting mix, seems like what Kate and Robert was saying was exactly right: 48% of Utahns said he definitely or probably should run, 51% probably or definitely should not.

That's interesting, how it's divided.

Doug Wilks: Well, and then the key is really looking at what the Republican party thinks with that.

I mean, that figure is not really that bad of a figure, and his approval rating was okay, was strong.

So, I think at this moment in time, he really has to decide what job he wants to do.

This split between Senator Romney and Senator Lee has been there for years, right?

Senator Lee was trying to help President Trump during the presidential election, Senator Romney before the first run came to the University of Utah and laid it out very clearly in the speech he gave.

So, that's not new.

So, I don't know if that territory that has already been staked out is going to have much impact.

I really love the description of we're willing to date some other candidates right now, because that's actually right, I think, for Utah.

They want to see what's going, what are the values that we can bring forward that Utah has to kind of support someone on the national landscape.

Jason Perry: There are a couple of issues that are impacting how people are voting, how they're viewing these candidates, and they're asking them these questions.

One was a bill, Robert, that you had a great article about that was just voted on in Washington, DC, the Respect For Marriage Act.

Talk about that just a little bit, because we even had a division there in our own Senate votes.

Robert Gehrke: Yeah, so this is the--this is the act that's sort of being passed as a consequence, I guess, of some of the language that Clarence Thomas used in the Dobbs opinion where he questioned whether same sex marriage was something that needed to be revisited.

And so, there was action in Congress to try to codify existing same sex marriages that had already been--you know, had taken place.

The--I think that we saw Senator Lee vote against it, we saw Senator Romney vote for it.

Senator Lee was of the opinion it didn't give enough protections to churches that wanted to do it.

The LDS church, interestingly, came out in support of this a few weeks ago.

I think it may be not necessarily surprising because if you look around the country, even in Utah according to the last Deseret News Hinckley poll, about three quarters of Utahns support same sex marriage.

So, there's broad public support for this, and so I don't think when the church came out in support of it, it necessary, you know, pushed it over the edge, flipped the outcome of this, but it wasn't--it was a fairly narrow vote, 61 votes in favor of it, and they needed 60 to pass it.

So, it was close, but I think-- I think what it is, is it's a recognition that these fighting--the fight that we had over same sex marriage over the course of many years, including Proposition 8, where the church came in and it was very active in opposing this, it's kind of in the past now, it's in the rear view.

I think that we've seen all of these marriages take place, the earth hasn't stopped spinning in its orbit, you know, and so I think there's an acceptance that this is something that we as a society can can live with, and we're not gonna keep fighting about it.

Doug Wilks: Can I comment on some of this?

The church was very--since 2015, it's really tried to balance fairness for LGBTQ people and also fairness for people of religious conscious who want to practice their faith in the public square.

And so, the church was very much in favor of the amendments that came forward which protected some aspects of religious liberty.

So, and the church has been very consistent marching towards that as it's worked at fairness for all, which didn't get the support, but this did get support across parties.

So, I think it's very interesting to look at: is this a moment in time--I think the House vote is on Tuesday.

Is this a moment in time where you codify gay marriage, but you also codify religious liberty protections so that people can live the lives they're trying to live and then you move forward?

So, I think that's a very interesting and important distinction in why the church supported this.

Kate Bradshaw: Isn't it interesting too, the LDS Church saying that they were comfortable with the amendments and therefore supportive of the bill, and, you know, they have obviously the religious side, but they have the higher education institution side as well, that they felt comfortable with the protections, that amendment provided enough to signal their support.

You know, Senator Romney votes for it, states his support.

Senator Lee does not and runs his own amendment kind of asserting that the protections weren't enough.

And I thought that was really interesting, particularly in our state, because you have, you know, the significant religious institutions say this is good enough.

This amendment is good enough for us.

We're comfortable.

And Mike Lee tried to make the case that, no, it's actually not good enough for you, we need to go a little bit further, and votes no.

And I just thought that was a very interesting dynamic, given that the church did insert themselves when, you know, they're often cautious about when they decide to, you know, use their power to signal something.

Doug Wilks: Yeah, I don't represent the Church, so I'm trying to be careful here, but what can you pass?

The art of politics is you have to figure out what you can pass, and Senator Lee, he had a lot of support for that bill.

Senator Romney supported the amendment of Senator Lee, but it didn't gain enough.

So, then he supported the other amendments, so the art of government is to really try, what can you do together?

You don't get everything you wish, no side gets everything it wishes, but you try to move forward so that people can be satisfied at the end of the day.

Jason Perry: I want to hit one more topic, Robert, just in our last 60 seconds or so.

We're going to be reading a lot in your columns about lawsuits on redistricting.

Just for people who are watching here, just give us a status report, because the congressional boundaries are being challenged still today.

Robert Gehrke: Yeah, the state tried to get the case thrown out, the judge refused to do that, so right now it's still pending in district court, the challenges to the congressional districts, the four congressional districts in the state.

It's kind of in a little bit of limbo though, because the Supreme Court has this case out of North Carolina challenging the redistricting.

They--if the Supreme Court says that the legislatures are the ones who get to decide the election law, including the boundaries, then chances are all of these cases across the country are going to end up going away.

But that's--that's still pending right now, so in the meantime the case challenging Utah's districts is still making its way through the district court.

As I said, the state is trying to appeal and have it thrown out.

In theory, I mean, if this case--if they're successful in challenging these boundaries and say that these--this is an unconstitutional gerrymander, then by 2024 we could see new congressional boundaries in the state of Utah, one that would probably at least be a competitive district--one of the four being at least a competitive district.

Jason Perry: Thank you.

Great insights this evening.

Wish we had more time.

Thank you, though.

And we would like to end this episode today by recognizing the passing of Bruce Christensen, former General Manager of KUED and former president of PBS.

Christensen died at his home in Orem on November 18.

Our thoughts are with him--with his family at this time.

And, as always, thank you for watching "The Hinkley Report."

We'll see you next week.

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