Congressional Race Polls Differ, Third Parties Being Ignored by Tribune
By Chris Nizzardini
Beehive Collective
Both of Utah’s most popular newspapers have polled thousands of likely voters, and things are looking worse and worse for Republicans, and even worse for third party hopefuls. Republicans have historically dominated First District, but it is looking more and more likely it will be two close to call. After Republican re-districting added urban areas to the traditionally rural district Republicans lost their current representative, and now have a more liberals in the region. The urban areas that were cut out of the Second District have failed to help John Swallow against Jim Matheson though, which many believe was the purpose behind the massive re-districting. A process, which has left many voters angry that, they have had to switch to a district they have little in common with.
In the First District Republican Rob Bishop leads Democrat Dave Thomas by fifty to thirty-two percent likely to vote in a Deseret News poll with two percent for Green candidate Craig Axford, and fourteen percent undecided. Oddly a Tribune poll carried out about a week later doesn’t entirely reflect those results. In fact in that poll Bishop loses more support than Thomas, 40 to 29 percent, with the rest undecided. Sadly the Tribune didn’t find it necessary to list independent and third party candidates. Which may account for the insane amount of undecided. After combining both polls Bishop still lead Thomas 41% to 24%.
The battle over heavily contested Second District, which has become of national importance for both parties, is still in Matheson’s hands as we move closer to November. The Incumbent moderate democrat leads his Republican opponent by forty-nine to forty percent of those polled. Green candidate Patrick Diehl and Libertarian Ron Copier had a dismal 3% of citizens likely to vote for them. Nine percent still remained undecided. In the Tribune poll forty-nine percent favored Matheson, and only twenty-seven percent said they were voting for Swallow, combined Matheson lead 44.5% to 33.5%.
Utah’s most conservative district doesn’t look like it has changed. Chris Cannon leads Nancy Woodside fifty-five to twenty-three percent in the Third District. The Libertarian Parties candidate Kitty K. Burton, received two percent in favor in the Deseret News poll, twelve percent were undecided. The Tribune poll of likely voters was about the same 55 to 20. An extraordinarily high amount of voters still remained undecided when polled, enough to swing the balance into another candidates favor. I don’t actually think these polls are that close in their accuracy, I believe a large margin of error exists in both polls, especially in the Tribune poll which ignored third party candidates, and in doing so ignored diversity in Utahn politics.
The Tribune poll also asked voters if they supported banning high-level nuclear waste, and increasing taxes on low level wastes. Forty-five percent said they favored the citizen’s initiative; forty-one percent opposed it, while 13 percent remain undecided.
