♪♪♪ 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," as the November election draws closer, new polling reveals the top issues motivating Utahns to vote.

Influential figures make waves as they throw their weight behind candidates in the US Senate race, and our panel takes a closer look into local races and brewing controversies.

♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ 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 Brian Carlson, anchor with ABC4 News; Kate Bradshaw, member of the Bountiful City Council; and Frank Pignanelli, political commentator and lobbyist with Foxley and Pignanelli.

Thank you so much for being with us this evening.

We have a lot going on in races in the country, but particularly here in the state of Utah, and I wanna continue with a conversation we had last week about our Utah State Senate race, particularly when it comes to things like endorsements, which have been big this week, not just that they're coming, but who it is.

And I just wanna say this context with you, Frank, first of all, we mentioned our poll we've been reading about in the paper, this is the Deseret News and the Hinckley Institute of Politics, between Senator Mike Lee and Evan McMullin.

The race itself was at 36%-34%, but one I want to talk about specifically is the 16% that said that they don't know.

These are people who said "I haven't made up my decision," and of that, close to half of those were made up of people who identify as very liberal and those who identify as moderate Republicans.

Frank, give us some sense of why you think that's the case.

That's a pretty high number for two people we know pretty well.

Frank Pignanelli: Well, it's a high number, and there's a lot going on this race because you have the Democrats, who refused to make a nomination, and instead are tryin' to support Ed McMullin, but when you do--when you look at the Deseret News poll and other polls, you see this fluidity that's going on there.

And so, you have this group of moderate Republicans who cannot make up their mind yet, because they hear these things about Mike Lee, but they don't know who Evan McMullin is, so that's what you're gonna start seeing the last several weeks is who is--who is Evan McMullin, and can he satisfy the concerns that moderate Republicans have.

The liberals are gonna end up goin' with Evan McMullin for obvious reasons.

So, that's where the fight's going to be.

So, Kate, do you agree?

I mean, is this the battle for the moderate Republicans for both of these candidates?

Kate Bradshaw: I think so, and I would count myself in that category.

It's, you know, we've had some longtime experience with Mike Lee.

We've had a very tumultuous two years, and if you are perhaps not inspired by some of his views on Supreme Court Justices, perhaps his alignment with the former president, then you've kind of been thinking about what your options might be.

You know, you're willing to date other people, and perhaps one of those might be Evan McMullin.

The challenge there is, I am convinced that Evan McMullin is not Donald Trump, and he's not Mike Lee, but I'm also unsure who he is.

I find it interesting as someone whose contact information gets in all of the lists that I haven't received very much from Evan McMullin.

Jason Perry: You will now.

Kate Bradshaw: Let's not put my cell phone number at the bottom of the screen.

But I am still wondering, what exactly are you?

You're not this, you're not that, but tell me what you are.

Describe what kind of an animal you're gonna be.

Brian Carlson: I feel like it's actually the opposite, because you have the biggest name that you could have coming out of the Democratic Party with a fighting shot to be able to take down Mike Lee.

At least, that's the way the Democrats look at it, else they wouldn't have endorsed an independent.

They would've nominated someone from their own party.

So, having someone--of course, we may not know his policies, may not know his politics, but you get that--all that money that's going into his campaign coming from outside sources shows you how strong of a feeling the Democratic Party here in Utah feels they have a chance to win that election.

Frank Pignanelli: So, I would add this.

Normally endorsements don't make a difference, but this is an abnormal election year all the way from nationally to locally, and the only way that the Democrats endorsed Evan McMullin is because of the endorsements of Ben McAdams, and Jenny Wilson, and others.

And so, and what's happening, I think, with the Pence endorsement, normally that wouldn't play a role into it, but because this is an abnormal year, people are looking for more guidance than they normally would.

Jason Perry: Yeah, let's talk about that, those endorsements.

You mentioned Mike Pence, and I want to read the endorsement he gave for Senator Mike Lee this week.

And, Kate, love to get you, since you're kind of in this category, I'm curious if it resonates with you.

'Cause it seems like this might be--you might be one of the people that this is aimed towards.

This is from Mike Pence this week.

"My hope and my prayer is that when we re-elect Senator Mike Lee here in Utah, he'll be part of a new Republican majority in the United States Senate to began to steer our nation back to the policies that made our country strong and secure and prosperous during the Trump-Pence administration."

Kate Bradshaw: As somebody who falls in that moderate camp, I don't think that's necessarily a helpful quote.

One of the reasons why is it punts--points back to the Trump-Pence administration, and if you're a moderate, if you're feeling unsure, part of what you're feeling unsure about is the kind of very dramatic and traumatic way the Trump-Pence administration ended, and to reflect back to that time period that gave some of those moderate Republicans an icky feeling, I don't necessarily find to be a helpful reminder if I'm trying to forget that and focus on the future of the Republican Party.

Brian Carlson: I think if you are going back to like, say, like, 2020, the reminder of Trump would've been toxic.

Whereas now it's kind of--we got some distance from the January 6 insurrection, and you have more of a picking that back up where Trump's followers and everyone who's backing him have some confidence now.

Kate Bradshaw: Do you think so, Brian, though?

Because we've had a summer with January 6 hearings to remind us, we're likely, because they postponed the next hearing, going to see that at some point, right probably about the time our ballots are mailing in Utah, and I don't think the Democrats are gonna let us forget 2020, and so that connection to me is still really relevant and important if you're looking at endorsements.

Brian Carlson: I think the main thing is that you can feel the energy, so to speak, in the political realm, where you have obviously the committee making their last kind of grand stand before the November election.

The reason for that is because they feel that groundswell picking back up again.

We have a lot more people just saying, you know what, time has passed, and maybe it wasn't as bad, as President Trump is saying it wasn't.

Jason Perry: Hey, putting these two together, it's interesting, 'cause if you go back to 2016 when Mike Pence came to the state of Utah, and he--I mean, this was his phrase, he's called on Republicans to come home.

Is this a little bit of flavor of that in this?

Brian Carlson: Absolutely, because if you look at the numbers for the last elections, that a statewide Republican like Mike Lee or Mitt Romney or Spencer Cox, they get around 60% to somewhere around 65%.

Mike Lee needs to get those Republicans to come back home, and so you're gonna start seeing more and more of, you can't send somebody back there who's going to help Biden, who's going to help Schumer.

You need somebody who's going to stand up against them.

If I was Mike Lee, I'd run the ad from--I mean, I'd run it with that movie, "All Good--A Few Good Men," saying you need someone at that wall to fight against the Democrats, and that's exactly what Mike Pence is doing in his very mild, Mike Pence way, but Mike Lee can't win this race unless the Republicans come home, and that's what Mike Pence is going to do, and I think you see more and more of those attempts, say, you need to come back home, 'cause he only needs a small sliver of them to start thinking more about what that means to have an independent back in Washington.

Jason Perry: I just wanna hear the other side for just a moment, Brian, because we talked about a couple of these endorsements.

We've got Mike pence, but as Frank mentioned a moment ago, there are some high profile Democrats in Utah that are right behind Evan McMullin, like Ben McAdams, we mentioned Jenny Wilson.

I wanna read this quote from Ben McAdams when he was talking about Evan McMullin to see if that hits that moderate part as well, to see sort of in contradiction with what we might have seen with the other one.

This is what we heard from Congress--former Congressman Ben McAdams.

"Both parties give too much power to the loudest and to the most radical voices.

Both parties are beholden to big money, to millions from big corporate and to individual contributors.

These politicians, they do everything based on how it affects their personal power and getting re-elected.

Let me tell you something, Mike Lee has changed, Utah--changed and Utah needs and deserves better."

Brian Carlson: I feel like there is--well, first of all you have Ben McAdams is unplugged.

I feel like you're getting him-- once you're out of office, at this point you have a lot more clout, a lot more flexibility in what you can say and what you can do.

So, I think you're feeling that from McAdams, but I feel like that's the climate, isn't it?

Where you have, we have to go strong on this side, strong Republican values have to be-- we have to go back to that, that coming home concept, whereas Democrats say, look, we have to go all the way to this side, and that's--we never seem to find a way in between.

The abortion issue is a good example of that, where we've gone from one extreme to the other, and then to think about how do we resolve this issue, we don't think about coming together, we think about, well, let's override the Supreme Court by adding more justices so we can get our side to win again.

It just feels like that climate is getting more ingrained on either side.

Jason Perry: Let's go to the climate for a second, because before I leave the Senate race, some things about this one, but it's bleeding into most of politics.

And, you know, Frank, you've run and held office before too.

I want to talk about some of these commercials.

Kate's not getting all this stuff in our mailbox, but we're watching a lot of stuff on TV, commercials, and we had a couple this week.

One in particular, not by an outside group; talk about what, kind of, what the rules are about that.

What do candidates have a responsibility to, because one of them, Evan McMullin said, "Mike Lee, you have to condemn this one and take down this commercial."

Frank Pignanelli: There are no rules, 'cause you have these super PACs that are created, and they're not allowed to have any type of discussions with candidates or vice versa.

So, they can go off and do what they want, say what they want, and all the candidate can do is, if he or she wants to disavow it, but these Super PACs, they get involved in the races, they raise money from across the country, and then come in and do these ads.

And it's been my experience that they have lots of money, but the ads aren't very creative.

Kind of is a cookie cutter, you know, the dark images, and the deep voice, and things like that, and they really don't spend time analyzing.

They'll say negative ads work, but they don't use, like, humor.

They'll use something really to get to somebody's vulnerabilities.

What they're trying to do is these are money making things.

Now, I don't necessarily say that it's bad to have--they're involved because they're issue oriented, but they're not helping, in my opinion, analysis of what people need to know who to vote for.

Jason Perry: Go ahead, Kate.

Kate Bradshaw: You know, there must be one person who does the deep dark voiceover, and he-- that person must be really raking it in for campaign season, because it is this cookie cutter.

I feel like when I've traveled this summer and watched local TV, it is the same cookie cutter ad, and it's almost a caricature of what you expect in the fall, and it lacks--if you're an undecided, it lacks any of that nuance that helps you start to make up your mind.

Frank is absolutely right, the campaigns can't coordinate, so you can't necessarily demand that the Super PACs take down their ad, but I think it is universally, no matter where you fall in the poetical spectrum, nobody really likes these ads.

And I think everyone walks for a snack break or a bathroom break as soon as they come on.

Jason Perry: As an elected official, when you look at these commercials, sounds like everyone's saying you feel like they're a little bit effective?

And, really, what do you think the responsibility is of a candidate?

Kate Bradshaw: I think they're effective in fundraising, and I think that is their goal.

I think they're designed to get the people who are already locked into their candidate thinking, this person needs my help right now.

I should open up my wallet.

Frank Pignanelli: Studies do show that negative ads can work, so that's why they use them.

Jason Perry: One last thing on this, Brian, and I know you talk to so many people in your position too that are looking at this race closely.

When we start seeing more and more of these commercials and more and more money coming from outside the state of Utah, is that an indication of how close this race really is?

Brian Carlson: I feel like it's an indication that you have a different race this setup.

I mean, obviously when you look at just the money alone, I think if we remember the numbers that was the--any candidate prior to Mike Lee, any challenger to Mike Lee had only raised X amount of thousands of dollars.

Now we're measuring that by record numbers in the millions, so that shows you, like, is there a shot?

Is this gonna work?

This is the best shot so far, at least to have a tight race in that race.

Jason Perry: So interesting; we'll continue to watch this race closely.

Can we talk about another race that almost no one talks about, at least historically?

And, Frank, I know you, since you watch elections so closely too, the idea of who our clerk is, right?

So, the Salt Lake County Clerk in particular, you know, Sherrie Swensen not going to continue, so we have a race there.

But it's so interesting, we see elected officials talk about, this is who I care about for clerk.

Why is this something people are even talking about?

Frank Pignanelli: There was a story that was released a couple days ago about how this clerk had made a bunch of statements, in particular calling Democrats Commies and Marxists, and he had some other stuff he had posted.

He has denied that, but yet there's screenshots of these posts that he made, there was very inflammatory things.

And to me what this race demonstrates, two things.

One is, why do we still have a delegate convention system?

'Cause this person who's running who really has some pretty heated rhetoric came out of that.

He beat someone else inside the convention, got the nomination that way, then why are we electing the clerk and the auditor and the treasurer and all these things, these county races?

So, he--by him being this way, he's asking all these questions, and so now what's going to happen is that--because if he does get elected, the Democrats are gonna say, wait, this is a guy that called us Commies and Marxists, how can we trust that person?

And the Republicans on the other hand are going to say, is this who we really want to make sure--'cause he wasn't necessarily elected because of his capabilities, but because of his rhetoric at a convention.

Jason Perry: Uh-huh, Kate, what can the clerk really do?

I mean, is it a big deal if you have a county clerk, for example, is responsible for these elections that might be, like, an election denier or-- Kate Bradshaw: I think it is a big deal.

We all depend on a high level of trust in those offices.

I've depended on it as a candidate, I know Frank has depended on it as a candidate.

I need to feel like I fairly won or I fairly lost, and the public needs that as well, and I think it's important for us to do that important transition of power that we do.

You know, there are a lot of cool transparency tools that the clerk's office in every every county have to, you know, watch returns come in, to be able to track your ballot and know when it's been counted.

Salt Lake County, quite frankly, has one of the most robust and transparent clerk's office websites.

I say that as a Davis county resident being slightly jealous watching primary returns that I was able to go to the Salt Lake County Clerk's website and drill down to the precinct level to see what the returns looked like and where things were coming in.

So, our transparency tools are better than they've ever been to view inside elections if you really want to.

I sometimes wonder if some of those that fall in that election denier camp are really well versed in what we do have.

Brian Carlson: The governor even mentioned that too.

The governor mentioned this, and we go back to when these all first started to pop up, the governor said, look, we've had this system in place for quite some time here in Utah, never had any issues.

We've had the most fair and balanced election that we've had in our history of this state to our knowledge.

Frank Pignanelli: Well, The Hinckley Institute has demonstrated a number of times, Utah has the gold standard of elections, so this individual is running as an election denier, he's out of sync, because Utahns are comfortable with the mail-in system, they know that it's safe and secure, so to me that's an outlying issue, and it really will not resonate in Utah.

Jason Perry: Okay, let's get into some others--this other issue is sort of like the sleeper issue.

We talked about it on the show last week, a lot of people commented about this, and I think we need to get to it just a little more to see what the implications are.

This is this idea of ESG policies.

We talked last week about how Utah's State Treasurer took a $100 million of state investment funds out of a firm that was really goin' through this idea of judging investments by their commitment to environmental, social, and governance.

Big public utilities meeting this week, I think, Frank, you and Kate were both there.

Let's talk about what this was and why this is gonna be one of those issues that's going to dominate some of our discussions during the session.

Kate, do you wanna start with you?

Kate Bradshaw: Sure, so there was a hearing in the Public Utilities Energy and Technology Committee, a presentation of a potential draft bill at the state level to deal with the issue.

Incredibly interesting is that at the outset of the committee, the chairman, Representative Carl Albrecht announced that they knew that there were 35 different state level bills on this topic, and the committee would maybe be doing some sifting too to whittle that down, but that they expected legislation on this issue as the sponsor, Rex Shipp, presented, and then as some concerns were raised from in particular the tech community, but also from the Utah Bankers Association and those that are involved with our financial institutions.

There was a lot of push and pull.

It was one of the more "get some popcorn" kind of hearings of the interim season, and so you can tell that this is really a fraught issue, and in some ways it may--there may be something to the there, there.

In some ways it might be a little bit of one of those red meat issues.

Jason Perry: Frank, please, and also have describe very clearly what you think these bills are going to try to do.

Frank Pignanelli: Well, it's interesting, because you have this stuff happening at the national level, but we have a lot going on in the local level, in the legislature, the Chambers of Commerce.

Senator Hinkins just talked about how he applied for an insurance policy, and because he sells electrical equipment to a coal mine, he was denied a policy and had to get a new one because of ESG rules.

So, and that was kind of mirrored--the committee had a lot of personal stories about people being impacted from ESG.

On the other hand, you have the Financial Services Committee saying, we don't know if one of the borrowers are not involved with ESG.

How do we make that decision?

So, this isn't just between industry environmentalists, you have debate going on in between industry itself on a local level, as 35 bills were filed, because the emotions on this are so great.

You have businesses saying, don't tell us what to do, you have others saying, yes, we're being impacted by it, so it's gonna be a--it's already happening, it's not--we're not even to the session yet, there's already these high emotions.

Jason Perry: We got business versus environmentalist?

Is that the kind of thing?

It's not really that necessarily anymore, is it?

Brian Carlson: That's part of it, but you have businesses saying they're trying to protect themselves, saying, don't use ESG as a policy, and they're lining that up against maybe technology and financial services, and the bankers say, yeah, but I--don't hurt us, 'cause we don't know if someone's got ESG, and so we have this friction going on.

The bill that's been looked at would prevent any--any state, local, city government from using a bank that had a policy towards ESG or knew of any based upon their lending practices.

So, I mean, it's getting really wild out there.

Kate Bradshaw: Jason, much like you just mentioned in the clerk's race, usually people aren't quite sure who their county clerk is.

Most of the time the state is largely unaware who the state treasurer is.

What usually people care about is, are we getting a return on our investments?

For our, you know, pension retirement funds, for our rainy day funds, for those types of things.

That's largely been what mattered.

You know, are those funds secure?

Have you invested them properly?

Those that are running hedge funds or things like that, are they factoring whether there's expensive environmental controls that might be required?

And so, now we do know who is running for state treasurer, because he has made this a campaign issue.

I am tied from a spousal perspective to someone who has a teacher pension in our state system, and I hope that we make the wisest financial decisions regardless, because I'm looking forward to, you know, spending that several years in the future.

Brian Carlson: And I think one of the things that's interesting on this is if you go to the ballot, right, how many times you've gone to the ballot, or the average regular person goes and fills out, and they go, treasurer, I don't know who that is.

And they talk about ESG, I don't think they are aware of even the concept of what the topic is.

So, you get into the thick of it, it's a huge deal, right?

How banks handle this, how the money is diverted.

I don't think the average person is even aware of this issue.

Frank Pignanelli: And by the way, they're bringing China into this thing and all sorts of stuff too, so this is an issue that your listeners are gonna be seeing more and more about.

Jason Perry: Yeah, to Brian's point, the people that are watching "The Hinckley Report" know more about this than others, and they should, because it's gonna be big this session.

I want to talk for just a moment about some very local things, particularly with Senator Gene Davis for just a moment.

I mention this because the Democratic Party this week called for an immediate and unconditional resignation of Gene Davis for some sexual-- the results of a sexual harassment investigation.

I wanna bring this up, and, Kate, maybe you will take this one first, because we had a student submit a question to us this week about this this very announcement from the Democratic Party.

Let's watch, this is Aya Hibben, a student at the University of Utah.

Aya Hibben: My name is Aya Hibben, and I am a senior at the University of Utah studying political science and history.

Recently, the Salt Lake Democratic Party called for Senator Gene Davis's immediate resignation after he was accused of sexual harassment.

But Senator Gene Davis protested and refuses to resign.

Do you think Senator Davis will resign, and what impact does this have on future victims who wish to report?

Thank you.

Kate Bradshaw: Well, to answer her first question, I don't think he intends to resign.

I think he intends to finish out his term.

He's actively up at the Hill, he was in committee hearings for September interim meetings, so I think it is his intention to continue and finish out his term in December.

He's not on the ballot, he lost in his primary, so he wouldn't continue to serve in the next legislative session.

You know, as somebody who spends time up at the state capitol and was on staff at the state legislature, this is not necessarily a new issue.

It is something that the women at the capitol are often aware of.

It's something that I'm hoping that the legislature continues to try and find ways to make sure that there's not a chilling effect.

There can be.

It is real.

It does get talked about, especially by the women in the hallways, and it's important because the legislature depends on interns.

We depend on them, they are the only staffer for many of the legislators that are up there, and we want our best and brightest students up there of all genders, and we want them to feel comfortable being up there.

Frank and I sometimes have interns in our day jobs, and so that's that's an important thing to address, and I think the legislature knows they need to continue to work on how they make sure that everyone feels like it's a safe working environment, a safe political environment for these types of allegations.

Jason Perry: So, Frank, just one last question on this though.

The Democrats took quick and decisive action on this one.

Frank Pignanelli: They did, and they needed to.

And also I would commend the legislature did too.

The Senate launched an investigation.

I think the word wanted to go out that someone that wants to make these allegations has done so and is not attacked for doing that.

Jason Perry: Okay.

Brian, I want to get to one last issue, because some polling we have done recently, Deseret News and the Hinckley Institute of Politics, but it comes to same sex marriages.

I just wanna spend a couple minutes on this, because the numbers are very interesting.

The question was this.

Do you think marriages between same sex couples should or should not be recognized by the law as valid with the same rights as traditional marriages?

This is all the state of Utah, 72% of Utahns agreed with that statement.

Brian Carlson: Isn't that wild how much that's changed over in just a short span of time?

I mean, it was only a number of years ago when it was the complete opposite, and we had-- I can remember, I mean, I think 2004 was that long ago, and you had President Clinton, obviously this wasn't Clinton's time, but you had--I remember some of these images around that same time period where we were doing the Family Act in Congress and signing off on that.

The church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints Family Proclamation to the World was widely celebrated as, oh, this is a great document, American values, family values, and now it's--that seems a little antiquated, it seems like Utahns kind of feel like, well, this is how it should be now.

These--we need to be more open, more accepting, and that idea feels like there is a definite shift in the--not only the overall thought for the country, but Utahns in particular.

Jason Perry: Well, to the country, Frank, I wanna hear from this, but 70--a recent Gallup poll put the whole country at 71% on the same question.

Frank Pignanelli: Yeah, absolutely.

It was interesting--nothing has happened like this in the country where you had an issue flip that quickly.

Part of it was after 2004 when Karl Rove had all these initiatives going on to help Bush get reelected, and the issue was no longer being asked.

And then over a period of about four or five years, what happened is that gay and lesbian activists are very smart.

They said, okay, we're getting out there, 'cause what they knew what would happen is this, and it did happen.

Americans and Utahns, they would hear them--they would hear these gay and lesbian couples being demonized, but their personal experiences at the workplace, the neighborhood, was, no, these are good people, I like them.

This is not matching up.

That's why it flipped four years later.

It happened that way.

There's a very good strategy that they had, and those that were opposed to it, they kept on demonizing these people, and it wasn't adding up.

It's a good lesson on how you approach these policy issues.

Jason Perry: Okay, last 20 seconds, Kate.

Kate Bradshaw: That cognitive dissonance made all the difference.

In 2004 I had a family connection, you know, one step removed that was so excited.

You know, they were in there to the court's office in that little window when people were just desperate, and they were so excited to get married.

They'd been together forever and raised kids together, and they were finally able, and I think seeing that, that people were interested in quickly forming families, made a big difference.

Jason Perry: That's gonna have to be last comment.

Thank you so much for your 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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