A new poll of likely voters in Utah released on Wednesday shows Republican Spencer Cox running nearly 20 points behind his winning vote percentage from 2020. It appears some of that support has gone to write-in candidate Phil Lyman.
The survey from Noble Predictive Insights shows:
- Spencer Cox (R) - 42%
- Brian King (D) - 25%
- Phil Lyman (write-in) - 15%
- Tommy Williams (Independent American) - 3%
- Robert Latham (Libertarian) - 2%
11% of respondents said they were undecided, and 2% refused to say who they supported.
When those undecided voters were pushed to make a selection, the numbers didn't vary much. Cox and King each picked up 1%, with Cox at 43% and King at 26%. Lyman's support was unchanged at 15%.
The survey was conducted Oct. 25-28 among 695 likely Utah voters. It has a margin of error +/- 3.7%.
Cox's 42% support is 20 points below the 62% he received from voters in 2020.
A poll conducted earlier this month by NPI showed Cox with 49% support, followed by King at 23% and Lyman at 5%.
NPI has a track record of accuracy in the Beehive State. Their June pre-GOP primary poll came extremely close to the final result. That poll gave Spencer Cox 55% to Phil Lyman's 42%. The final vote tally was Cox 54.4% and Lyman 45.6%.
Lyman's level of support is surprising given the hurdles a write-in effort faces, but he has been actively campaigning and spending money on the effort since Cox defeated him in the June primary election.
Lyman's campaign has been driven by Republican dissatisfaction with Cox and conspiracies about the legitimacy of Cox's place on the ballot.
Lyman and his supporters have spread bogus claims that Cox did not secure enough signatures to qualify for the primary election. They've also seized on a legislative audit of the candidate signature process, falsely asserting it proves that Cox did not meet the requirements to run in the primary.
Earlier this week, Lyman baselessly attributed his primary loss to election machines being "preloaded" with 40,000 votes for Cox.
President and U.S. Senate
Republican Donald Trump leads Democrat Kamala Harris by nearly 20 points in Utah ahead of Tuesday's election.
According to the survey:
- Donald Trump (R) - 53%
- Kamala Harris (D) - 34%
- Other candidates - 5%
- Not sure/undecided - 5%
- Refused to say - 2%
The results did not change measurably when the undecided voters were pushed to make a selection. Trump's support increased to 54% while Harris remained at 34%.
Trump receiving barely above 50% is not surprising. Utah is hardly a bastion for MAGA despite Republican domination. In 2016, Trump received only 45.54% of the vote in Utah, the lowest percentage of all the states he carried in that election. Four years later, he received 58.13% of the vote in Utah. Those were the lowest vote percentage for any GOP candidate in Utah since 1996.
In the U.S. Senate race to succeed Mitt Romney, Republican John Curtis seems likely to cruise to an easy win on Tuesday.
- John Curtis (R) - 51%
- Caroline Gleich (D) - 24%
- Carlton Bowen (Independent American) - 5%
- Not sure/undecided - 16%
- Refused to say - 2%
After undecided respondents were pushed to choose, Curtis's support increased to 54%, and Gleich ticked up to 26% in the poll.
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