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

Jason Perry: Tonight on "The Hinckley Report."

Major election news could have a big impact on Utah and the 2024 election.

Recent polling reveals which sources Utahns trust for their political news.

And Utahns react to controversial comments from a former political leader.

♪♪♪ 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 Dennis Romboy, editor and reporter for the Deseret News; Heidi Hatch, anchor with KUTV 2News; and Marty Carpenter, president of 24-Nine Communications.

So much is happening on the national stage and locally in politics, so glad to have you all with us.

Heidi, I wanna start with you for just a moment, because we started talking about this last week on "The Hinckley Report," Utah often is a state where some of the political trends tend to play out nationwide.

Some of the policies get talked about because we have an interesting approach to politics and policy.

What we started talking about last week has caught national attention, it was a poll that Hinckley Institute did with the Deseret News about the next presidential election.

And the question was, if the 2024 Republican presidential primary were today, who would you vote for?

And the question is whether or not we would look at other candidates.

And I want to start with this, because Ron DeSantis, interestingly enough, got 24% of Utahns said that's who they would vote for.

Among Republicans, that was 33%.

But what was interesting is there's a lot of don't-knows, Liz Cheney got 16%, but Donald Trump was at only 15% in the state of Utah.

What does that mean for kind of Republicans and kind of what we might see into the next election?

Heidi Hatch: Well, I think when you talk to voters, there's a lot of people who may like or liked what President Trump did in policy regard, but what they see with President Trump now that he's out of office is that he doesn't change, and he still is always going to go further than you think.

When he should be upset about something, he's upset, and then says crazy things like "Let's get rid of the constitution."

And I think if voters had to and he ended up being the nominee again, I think a lot of Republicans would begrudgingly vote for him.

I think the same for President Biden on the other side.

But I think people want other options.

We're still two years out, so the big question is who will rise to the top?

DeSantis seems like the star right now.

I think a lot of people like what he did in Florida; the question is, does he have what it takes to get across the finish line?

There's a lot of others like Liz Cheney or Nikki Haley that maybe don't have the name recognition right now, but I think people want to see who else is out there.

They want to get on the dating app and swipe right, see what happens.

Jason Perry: That's right.

So, Marty, what's interesting about that too is that there was a time, and fairly recently, where very conservative Republicans were not willing to go out against former President Trump.

They would not say negative things.

They might not say anything at all, but they wouldn't be negative.

That doesn't seem to be the case now.

Marty Carpenter: One thing about President Trump is that he is particularly skilled at speaking to his base.

But a really successful politician over a long period of time can speak to multiple audiences with a slightly different message.

Trump seems to be just sort of ringing the same bell over and over to the same group, while most Republicans who don't fall into that MAGA category are starting to think that this show is something they've already seen.

This is a rerun.

There's nothing new coming here.

And so they're starting to look around a little bit, and I think in particular these types of polls are really just name recognition to some extent, but most Republicans are looking at what they see from Governor DeSantis so far and saying, that's like President Trump in that he doesn't take any garbage from anybody, but maybe with an ability to actually still get something done.

Jason Perry: But we can see that influence in the most recent midterm elections, right, Dennis?

Because we see what Trump- endorsed candidates--how they performed across the country.

But what was interesting, I want to play--show you a brief statement from Senator Romney this week that kind of gets to that very issue, because, you know, there's name recognition of what comes next, but what does that Trump name mean right now?

And this is the comment I'd like to have you say something about from Senator Romney.

He said, regarding President Trump, "If you get endorsed by him in the primary, you're likely to win.

If you get endorsed by him in the general, you're likely to lose.

So for someone who actually wants to win an election, getting endorsed by him is the kiss of death."

Dennis Romboy: I think that's pretty well said, isn't it?

We saw that play out in the in the past election here.

A lot of hand-picked Trump candidates did not do well.

The Democrats were able to secure the Senate again, the Republicans have a narrow margin in the House, and a lot of these Trump-endorsed candidates did not fare well, and a Trump endorsement might not be worth as much now as it was two years ago.

Jason Perry: So, Marty, do you see that continuing?

Marty Carpenter: You know, I look at that example, and I think maybe what he is, he's a really good hamburger joint that can't go franchise.

Right, he's got his own brand that he can do his own thing when the spotlight's on him, but extending that same type of style to other candidates, he either picks woefully under-qualified candidates, candidates who can't perform, or at the very least candidates who can't win.

And that has hurt his overall brand to a large extent.

Jason Perry: Since you brought it up a moment ago, Heidi, there's some comments even from the former president this week about terminating the Constitution.

Talk about what kind of effect that has, maybe even on people who support him.

Heidi Hatch: I think that's the problem, is I think a lot of people are--a lot of people who maybe backed Trump in the past were hopeful that maybe, you know, he'd come to his senses, and he could figure out how to reel it in.

But Trump will be Trump, I think is what we're learning, and I think he probably had a right to be upset about some of the things that came out this week as Twitter's opening their Twitter files, but he takes it instead of, "I'm upset, that probably wasn't fair," to, "Okay, let's just burn down the Constitution," which is not what people want to hear.

People want to see restraint from him, and I think that he can't do that.

That's just not who he is.

So, if you want Trump running again, the expectation is that you're going to have that wild card that kind of creates stress from both sides, where they're always like, what's he gonna say?

Can he just stick with whatever the policy is, or is he gonna go a little bit crazy?

And I think that he actually got a lot of people voting that maybe had been on the sidelines before voting that are really the--what you call the MAGA base now, but that can't win an election.

I think we see the red meat from both the left and the right in primaries, and that may get you into the final election, but you've got to become more centrist oftentimes to get elected, and he can't ever pull back to that centrist point, I think is what we see.

Dennis Romboy: The Republican party has always seen itself as a defender of the Constitution, and here the leader of the Republican party suggested we can throw out the Constitution to overturn an election.

I don't know that--a lot of Republicans didn't really respond strongly to that.

Some did, but a lot didn't still.

But I think that that's gonna-- I think it hurts him overall, even with with his base, and even another Mitt Romney quote said that Trump went from MAGA to RINO with that comment.

Jason Perry: What kind of impact did the former president have in Georgia?

What's your take on that?

Dennis Romboy: I think early on he had, in the primary, again, he obviously had some effect, and it seemed like toward the end there with Herschel Walker in a very close race.

I think Trump was pretty silent through a lot of that.

Again, I think goes back to the hamburger stand in the franchise example, that he comes out strong and can do all these things on a small scale, but large scale, it hasn't panned out for him.

Jason Perry: Heidi, this has an impact on the majorities in the United States Senate in particular.

Republicans are going to take the House by a fairly slim majority, but not in the Senate, which is interesting.

This is a 51-49 majority for the Democrats, but try to talk about some interesting changes that have developed just overnight, including Senator Sinema from the state of Arizona.

Heidi Hatch: She came out, it's interesting, I think she waited until after the Georgia election, but I think she wants to remain relevant as we head into this new congressional session, because Manchin, Sinema, and Romney had a seat at the table, they were able to negotiate some deals, and if we are now where maybe her voice doesn't matter as much, she's turned independent as of today.

So, does that give her a little more relevancy?

Does it give her a seat at the table at negotiating some of those deals?

She votes, I think, 93% of the time so far with President Biden, with her party, but there's that small percent where Romney has that as well where they can kind of sit down, make deals, and possibly change the legislation a little bit.

And I think that's where she wants to stay.

And I think it probably lets Romney have a little more relevancy too, because I think that with that Georgia race, that maybe he lost a little bit of it, where he wasn't needed as much, or his vote wasn't needed.

Jason Perry: I'm curious about this trend, Marty.

Utah had our own little experiment with an independent candidate for our state senate against Senator Mike Lee with Evan McMullin.

Now that Kyrsten Sinema said she's going to register independent, she has--she sounds like she's still going to caucus with the Democrats, but talk about that trend.

Is there anything to make of that?

That's three independents in the United States Senate.

Marty Carpenter: Yeah, but what it shows us, I guess initially, is that they don't get elected.

They get elected with a party, and then they go change in some way, at least in Sinema's case.

Here in Utah we obviously saw Evan McMullin running as an independent, did not win.

Voters don't seem to be there yet, even though so many voters still kind of fall into the middle of that bell curve where they're, I may be a Republican, but I'm not that far right.

I might be a Democrat, but I'm not that far left.

But they're still hesitant for whatever reason to go and punch the ticket for an independent.

Dennis Romboy: I don't know if--Evan McMullin said he wasn't going to caucus with either party if he won the election.

I don't know, that that might have hurt him.

If he said, I'm going to caucus with the Republicans, maybe he pulls more Republicans his way.

But I think the key is if you're going to be an independent, I think you still have to choose a side and caucus with one party or the other to really be relevant when it matters.

Marty Carpenter: That was the single biggest thing that cost him in that election, absolutely.

That was his biggest mistake, was that process.

Jason Perry: You think it may have helped him substantially?

Marty Carpenter: I mean, he needed to set himself up as, "Look, I'm a Republican, but I'm not that kind of Republican.

I fit with the people in the middle of that bell curve I've been talking about."

But when he took that away, boy, it was just a hole that you could drive a truck through.

Dennis Romboy: Well, and obviously the Lee campaign exploited that, said, hey, this guy is a Democrat, he's going to caucus with Democrats, despite what he says.

Heidi Hatch: And I think most voters when you start to talk to them--and not most, but I think there's a lot of people who really are centrist and they would like to see less of the far right in the far left, but it doesn't change how business is done in our country, and the business, at this point, is done by two parties.

And I think people understand that if they have to, they're going to go to one of those sides, and I think they want their candidates to tell them what side that's going to be.

Marty Carpenter: I was gonna say, but the winds of change are really fickle, right?

So, it would take, like, one, maybe two to win somewhere for that to start to build some momentum, but until there's a victory or a pattern of victory that someone is brave enough to go chart, it's probably gonna stay the way-- Dennis Romboy: It'd have to be significant office, right?

Marty Carpenter: Exactly, Senate.

Jason Perry: We had a student question submitted this week.

It gets to this very issue and how the parties are going to handle it.

Marty, will you listen to this question?

And we'll start with you.

Nicholas Cockrell: Hi, my name is Nick Cockrell.

I am a Master of Legal Studies student here at the University of Utah, and my question comes after the Georgia runoff election that we saw this week.

A lot of the national conversation I've noticed is focused on what's next for Republicans.

Even our own Senator Romney is calling for a change in strategy and a change in the types of candidates that the Republican party puts forward.

I'm curious if you think there are implications here in Utah.

Like, do you think that our majority party is going to change their approach in any way in terms of types of candidates or the types of campaigns that they run?

Thank you so much.

Marty Carpenter: Political pendulums swing, right?

And we had for the last several years a pendulum on the right that swung way to the right, but it's going to come back.

That doesn't mean it's going to go all the way back to where moderates are totally in charge, but you'll probably end up somewhere in a nice center between, hey, there are things we like about the far right and being really principled on some of these things that are important to us or that have become more important in recent years, but that doesn't mean that we're embracing the style.

That goes back to our earlier discussion about why DeSantis is sitting at, like, 24% in a Utah poll, because he gives you a lot of what people have liked, the stuff they may not be super happy to admit they like about Trump, but without having to be fully embracing the Trump style.

Jason Perry: Heidi, you interview so many people, and-- about their political affiliations and their hopes.

Are Utahns looking at some of these, like, the results, for example, the midterm elections or what's happened with President Trump over the last week and a half, are they looking for a different kind of candidate?

What are they--what are they looking for?

If the Republican party wants to-- Heidi Hatch: I think Republicans are trying to figure out who they are and what they want to be, and I think that both parties, we've seen over the last few years, have had to try to figure out how far left or how far right we are.

But Republicans really had a losing year if you look overall historically with everything that was going on with President Biden's approval ratings, with gas prices, inflation, the pull out of Afghanistan; there was a lot of reasons that Republicans should have won and won big, and they did not.

And so, I think that Republicans really have to sit down and figure out who they want to be and talk as a party.

And when you listen to people and sit down and listen to candidates and also people who are listening to the candidates, the voters, they're trying to figure out where they want to be themselves, because I think a lot of people who didn't want to support Trump eventually ended up supporting him, and now they're trying to figure out, where do I want to be and what kind of candidates do I want to back?

And they have a short amount of time to figure that out, because everything starts to happen for the next election very quickly, and so a bit of an identity crisis going on.

And I'll be interested as anyone else to see exactly where they land.

Jason Perry: So, Dennis, these have real-life policy implications also in terms of some of the big issues that are being presented before our members of Congress.

And I want to talk about one in particular this week, because the Defense of Marriage Act was put forward, now officially voted on and passed by the House and the Senate.

Talk about that for just a moment because we had a little bit of a mix in our own state of Utah in the vote on that particular piece of legislation.

Dennis Romboy: Yeah, so we had Senator Lee vote against it, Senator Romney vote for it.

In the summer all four of our Republican congressmen voted in favor of the Respect of Marriage Act, but when it came to the vote yesterday, Thursday, Senator Owens changed his vote from yes to present.

Senator--Representative Owens, yeah.

So, there is strong support for that among the delegation other than those couple of votes.

And I think Representative Owens said he didn't think it went far enough, as Senator Lee said, as far as the religious liberty protections go.

Jason Perry: Marty, talk about this Respect for Marriage Act, because this is--it got a lot of attention, particularly from Utahns who ended up supporting it, including some key constituencies here in the state.

Marty Carpenter: Well, that's the thing, is when the church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints takes a position on something, suddenly that's a lot of cover for a federal delegation, many of whom are members of said church.

So, you know, that obviously had a big implication on how people ultimately voted on it.

Also, with the final tally in it, when you see people vote present or vote no, they also knew that it was going to pass.

So, they knew they weren't changing the outcome.

It gives you some ability to make a statement without actually pulling the rug out from everyone on what's actually going to take place.

Jason Perry: Let's talk about some other polling numbers, because it's interesting, every elected official hopes people like them in some way.

And the way we gauge that is by seeing how--what their approval number is.

I want to talk about our Governor Spencer Cox for just a moment, because we have some approval numbers on him.

But it leads into a big question about how much power is he going to have in this next legislative session?

Dennis, we did this poll with you at the Deseret News, the Cox approvals, here they are.

Do Utahns approve him?

Sixty-three percent of Utahns approve of Spencer Cox, of him, twenty--thirty percent disapprove, seven percent don't know.

Sixty three percent, your take on that.

Dennis Romboy: That's a good number.

He took a couple of hits this past year.

Tucker Carlson went after him, the far right of the Republican party has not been happy with him.

But overall, I think he appeals to most Utahns, especially those that Heidi talked about that are kind of in that center area.

He seems to--the policies, I think, are amenable to most Utahns, and he seems to have a compassionate side that you don't see a lot of times in politics.

Jason Perry: Heidi, of note, actually break it down by party demographics, that 67 approval among Republicans, 50% approval among Democrats, and 62% of other; seems pretty well, you know, in line on all parties.

Heidi Hatch: Absolutely, I think nationally, especially when you look at these numbers for a Governor, they're good numbers.

We've seen higher numbers in the state of Utah before, but I think that's representative of kind of who he is.

And I don't want to say he both sides it, but he tries to be a little in this center and understand both sides.

And sometimes your popularity won't be sky high then because you're trying to make everybody happy.

And so, I think he can be pleased with that number.

How much power he has, I think, depends on how much he wants to stand behind the issues in his budget, because oftentimes we've seen here in the state of Utah where a governor or someone's come out with a budget or their ideas, they put it out there, and then they don't really go work with the legislature, or don't use their bully pulpit.

So, the question is, will he use that popularity and the bully pulpit to get some of the things passed that he'd like to see done?

Jason Perry: Very interesting, can he test drive this 63% is the question, Marty.

And let's talk about his budget for just a moment.

This is a $26 billion dollar budget that the governor just unveiled yesterday and today, we see pieces of it over two days.

But of interest here is what he called the year of the teacher.

Let's talk about some of those pieces for teachers in his budget.

Marty Carpenter: Yeah, so he's gonna give more money to teachers, and that's something that everyone kind of tiptoes around usually.

Is it something we should do, something we need to do?

There's a lot more money in the budget this year.

I mean, to jump to $26 billion, I think it's about a $4 billion dollar jump year over.

That's a significant amount of money.

It's not money that we're necessarily going to have next year or the year after that, so they want to spend it in the right way.

Salaries are kind of an interesting one then, because those are ongoing commitments.

That's not a one-time bonus being paid to teachers.

I think it's interesting how they rolled it out as well, right?

Thursday is a better day to roll out a story, Friday is a better day to bury a story.

What they do on Thursday, they rolled out their education budget and the story was tax cuts, raises for teachers.

Friday, today, he's going to roll out the rest of the budget.

We'll see what else is in there.

But it's the stuff that he didn't want to highlight yesterday.

Jason Perry: On the teacher part Heidi, so it's $4,600 increase for teachers, and the rest up to $6,000 will be for benefits associated with that.

How is that being received?

Heidi Hatch: I think it can be meaningful, but I think there's question marks as to whether or not this will be funded in the future, and also talks about whether this could be connected to something else.

Is this possibly going to be connected to changes in education?

Then it's not going to be as popular.

But I think that as a state we see that we need to attract teachers that will come and stay in the profession, and so I think it's important to talk about that.

But if there are any amendments to how that money comes, I think that depends on whether it passes.

Jason Perry: Yeah, talk about that one, Dennis, because there might be a string-- Dennis Romboy: The UEA, I think, is pleased with the proposal, but there might be a string, and that is tying that raise for teachers to school choice.

And that's a bill that came up in the session last year, didn't make it very far, got out of committee and failed in the House, but that could be a negotiating point for getting the raises and for getting school choice, which many Republicans in the legislature support.

Jason Perry: So, Marty, interesting, there's even things in this budget, $20 million dollars for teen centers, take care of these basic needs for students in high schools all across the state.

Marty Carpenter: Yeah, it's something that I think gets rolled out on Thursday instead of Friday because it's going to be very popular.

It's something that when they've been put in place, when they've been piloted in different schools, it's been well received.

I think we recognize that it's something that's important in order to ensure the success of students, so it's a positive one, it goes on the Thursday announcement and not the Friday.

I think that's a good one to include.

Jason Perry: Well, let's do one more, Heidi, on the Thursday announcement.

So, these tax cuts, this tax relief, over $1 billion dollars in tax cuts.

Talk about that, because, you know, this is going to have implications through the whole state of Utah.

But it does give also an indication of where the state of Utah is doing economically.

Heidi Hatch: Yeah, we have a lot of extra money, and the big question is when you talk to people, do we take that money and do we invest it in important issues and things, whether it's education or health, or do we give some of that money back to the people?

And a lot of people are struggling at home, they're having a hard time paying their grocery bill or making rent.

The question is, even when you talk about a billion dollars, is it going to be a meaningful amount that goes back to Utahns where it makes a difference in giving them a little leeway and having a little extra money where they're not living paycheck to paycheck?

And I think there's a lot of different places you can cut, and the question is where he wants to cut, is it going to be where the legislature wants to?

Jason Perry: Yeah, that's such a great point there, Dennis, because, you know, we all have watched over the years.

Of course, the governor presents a budget, and then the legislature does what they want.

Dennis Romboy: Yeah, so, I mean, he can roll this out, plans a proposal.

It could be a baseline to start with, but the legislature is going to probably set that aside and start with their own budget proposal, and then go from there.

And obviously there will be negotiation, discussions back and forth.

The governor will get some of what he wants, and the legislature will get what it wants.

Jason Perry: It seems like there's some maybe playing with the numbers a little bit, some agreement between the legislature and the governor on these two big issues, funding for education and even tax cuts.

Dennis Romboy: Yeah, that's true, and, you know, a billion dollars for education, that's a big number.

I think we've seen that number in the past.

Previous governors, education has always been at the top of the list for every governor that I can recall in the past decade for sure.

Marty Carpenter: He's found a way to message it better though.

Like, governors in the past tend to get caught up in talking about the WPU and trying to explain what that is.

He just came out, said, "It's a $6,000 increase for teachers."

Boom, much cleaner message.

Also, these things get done mostly behind the scenes.

Even though there was an announcement from the governor yesterday talking about "Here's me rolling my budget," that is not the first time the Speaker of the House has heard it, it's not the first time the Senate President has heard it.

They've kind of coordinated, they're generally on the same page, which is why when we get, you know, 39-plus, 45 days down the road, they're going to all be able to say, "We got the budget that we wanted to get."

Heidi Hatch: And that messaging matters, and I think that sometimes where things have failed in the past, where you roll something out, but you don't explain it to voters.

And I think that you need that explanation of--you know, a billion dollars, most of us can't wrap our mind around what exactly that does.

But if you say this is exactly what you're going to get and this is how it will work, I think that messaging helps people wrap their brains around it and say, okay, I can get behind that.

Jason Perry: Can we talk about messaging for just a moment?

'Cause I think it's interesting, you all are connected to the press, of course, the paper, TV, and you're advising people on how they approach their messaging.

We asked a couple of questions in a poll that I just want to end with a couple of these things.

I think it's so interesting because, you know, how do we as voters know what's happening?

And how do we make up our minds?

And we were trying to figure out where people are getting their information.

And what is just so interesting to me is when we ask where people get their news, this a poll we did, the Deseret News, we'll start with you on this one, Dennis, 76% of Utahns say they get their news from their devices.

Not from TV, not from radio, not from other places.

It's from their devices.

Dennis Romboy: I have my device in my hand constantly, right?

So, to me that's obvious that that's where people are getting their news and information from, because we have those--they're in our hands all the time, and we're glancing at them, and maybe we're playing games too.

But I know we're scrolling through.

You can't miss the news headlines.

I think it's all there in your hand.

And that seems obvious to me that that's where people are getting their news and information.

Jason Perry: How's TV handling this?

Tell--what are you doing?

Heidi Hatch: Well, there's a big shift in the last year.

I think there's more people who stream a traditional newscast as opposed to watching it over an antenna, over cable, and I think whether you're a newspaper or you're a television organization, the shift has been happening slowly over the years.

When I started this business, there wasn't websites where you had to put your news, and we weren't posting stories on Instagram or TikTok or YouTube or a podcast.

But we all have to adjust to where people are, and I have kids who are 22 and 17 years old, they've never turned on the TV to watch a program at a specific time.

They get it when they want it, and they get it how they do.

The interesting thing is when you listen to people on social media, they say we don't need newspapers anymore, we don't need news stations, but what they don't realize is the snippets of news that they get on Twitter or on Facebook or where it's posted on Instagram, whatever, we're still doing the news-gathering, we're still knocking on doors, we're talking to elected leaders; we're just providing them the news in wherever they are.

We're putting the news and bringing it to them.

So, it's still important that those news organizations exist, but we have to adjust and go where they are, which is hard to keep up with sometimes.

Jason Perry: Totally true, and I'm kind of curious in our last minute-ish, Marty, we asked people if social media, since a lot of this coming through here--through these channels, whether it is having an impact on their understanding of current events.

And what's interesting is 55% of Utahns said it's not making much of a difference, social media is not making much of a difference in how they understand current events.

Marty Carpenter: Well, they're either lying-- Jason Perry: Is this "sus," as the kids would say?

Marty Carpenter: Or they're woefully ignorant, because how a story is presented to you sets the parameters for how you react to that story, right?

That's why it's important to have a healthy diet of news and get it from all angles so you can understand what's really going on.

But I agree with you, it's source versus distribution method, right?

We're still getting it from news sources, hopefully, and not just some random guy on the internet, but we may be getting it on our devices.

I think what--the most important thing is that you have a healthy diet of your news and you're getting it from reliable sources.

Jason Perry: Very interesting.

I know we're watching closely, and we're all adapting the best we can.

Thank you so much 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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