SALT LAKE CITY, Utah—Despite finishing third in the state’s 2016 primary and not campaigning in Utah since 2020, former President Donald Trump is projected to decisively defeat former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley in the 2024 ’Super Tuesday’ caucus clash here.
It is uncertain if he’ll secure the 50 percent plus of the March 5 tally needed to win all of Utah’s 40 delegates because some of the state’s conservatives still have concerns about his character and fitness to serve.
The latest Utah poll showed President Trump on the cusp of clinching that 50 percent. In a Dan Jones & Associates survey conducted from January 16 to 21, which polled 428 Republican voters, the former president received 49 percent, Ms. Haley received 22 percent, and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis received 13 percent.
“The people in the state of Utah, based on my sense of them, they still have reservations about Donald Trump’s style,” said Sen. Mike Kennedy (R-Alpine), who is running in Utah’s Congressional District 3 GOP June 25 primary for the House seat being vacated by U.S. Senate candidate Rep. John Curtis (R-Utah).
“I think many people are very appreciative of the things that he does, but not how he does it,” Mr. Kennedy told The Epoch Times. “But, I’ve formally endorsed Donald Trump and would love to see him as our next president.”
“There’s certainly an element here who adamantly opposes Donald Trump, and then there’s another element of the party that very strongly supports him,” former Utah Republican Party chair Carson Jorgensen said. “And so, it’s an interesting dynamic.”
A significant component of that “interesting dynamic” is the respectful ambiance of “the LDS culture” cultivated by the state’s pioneering Mormons, he said.
“A lot of people here are very kind and very nice and pretty soft-spoken conservatives, but they had a hard time, some of them, voting for Trump, even the second time,” Mr. Jorgensen told The Epoch Times. “But now that’s gone. You’re seeing people realizing that, yeah, he said things that were mean, and he might have upset the applecart. But guess what? They were safer. They were richer, and they were better off under Donald Trump. I would expect [him] to win quite handily. Absolutely.”
“There has been that hesitancy in the state” in supporting President Trump, said Riverton Mayor Trent Staggs who, along with Mr. Curtis, is among candidates vying in the Republican primary for the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah).
“But, as I’m going around the state—we’ve done 60 to 70-plus town halls in all—the tens of thousands of people who I’ve talked to, there’s a strong sense that we need to get back to what was working under President Trump,” Mr. Staggs told The Epoch Times. “I believe we’re going to have a great night. I think President Trump is going to overwhelm [Ms. Haley].”
Utah Young Republicans chair Zac Wilson, who is also seeking Mr. Curtis’s House seat in the Republican primary, agreed.
Mr. Trump has “generally underperformed in the state, but I think he will clean up” in Utah on March 5, he told The Epoch Times.
“I think Nikki [Haley] will outperform what she has done in the rest of the states in Utah, but I think Trump will win,” Mr. Wilson said. “I imagine he wins by more than 50 percent but I could be wrong.”
Utah Republican Party chair Robert Axson offered a similarly mixed forecast.
“I think Donald Trump is going to have a fantastic night. And I think that Nikki Haley is also going to have a night that she'll be very excited and proud about,” he told The Epoch Times. “The way that’s going to play out will be interesting, and I have no way to guess what the final numbers will be.”
Haley Faces ‘Uphill Battle’
Sen. Mike McKell (R-Spanish Fork), who is on Ms. Haley’s Utah leadership team, acknowledged campaigning against Mr. Trump has been an “uphill battle” but the final results could be surprising.“We’re excited. She’s got a lot of support,” he told The Epoch Times, noting when Ms. Haley addressed voters on Feb. 28 at Utah Valley University in Orem, “it was absolutely packed. There were 500 people in the overflow room, which is also entirely packed.”
Ms. Haley was the first Republican candidate to campaign in Utah since Mr. DeSantis in July.
Independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has been to Utah “and Joe Biden did an event but on the Republican side, DeSantis came out early on, but we haven’t seen Trump yet,” Mr. McKell said.
“There’s a lot of support, but she’s running against a quasi-incumbent with former President Trump,” he said. “I think it’s going to be a tough, tough race but I think there’s a lot of support.”
“There are quite a few that I’ve met who do support Nikki Haley in our area but Trump is, by far, the front runner in Utah from what I’ve seen,” said Roosevelt Mayor Rod Bird, also among candidates seeking Mr. Curtis’s House seat.
“People are just tired of the economy, the inflation, the energy policies, the border policies, and they see [Trump] as a solution to that,” he told The Epoch Times.
Mr. Bird is among Utah Republicans who backed Mr. DeSantis.
“He’s who I probably would have supported if he was still in the race for two reasons,” he said. “I saw him very similar to Trump as far as his policies go [and] he’s a little more mild-mannered than Trump. And then, we would have an eight-year president instead of a one-term president.”
Former Federal Society Director and U.S. Senate candidate Brent Orrin Hatch, whose father Orrin Hatch represented Utah in the Senate for 42 years, said he’s not sure Super Tuesday results are going to be a big story. “Trump is going to win. The big story, the question I have is, the people who are still hanging onto Nikki Haley, what are they going to do?”
Mr. Hatch, who served in various counsel capacities in the administrations of Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush, suspects that the vast majority will vote for Mr. Trump.
“It’s a binary choice: Trump versus Biden,” he told The Epoch Times. “Pretty easy choice.”
Mr. McKell said President Trump’s supporters should not count on what they see as a “pretty easy” binary choice.
“It’s still hard to say” what Utah’s Haley supporters will do if she leaves the race “and you’re seeing that across the nation,” he said. “There are, certainly, a number of Republicans who are not looking forward to supporting President Trump. But you know, I don’t hear any of them pushing for President Biden, either. So, I don’t know,” Mr. McKell concluded.
“It’s still not clear to me what will happen with that 30-to-40 percent who want an alternative” Republican to President Trump, he added.
