Utah U.S. Senate- Race of the Day

31 Days Until Election Day

Utah U.S. Senate

Status: Republican Incumbent

2022 Presidential Result: Red State (West)

Outlook: Leans Republican

This may be the most intriguing Senate race of 2022. Utah has long been one, if not the most  Republican states in the Union but the incumbent Senator may be in a fight for his political life. To say the least, a Democrat would not have been too competitive against Mike Lee, as he seems a third term. This caused the party to make the hard decision to not run a candidate of their own, but instead back the Independent effort of Evan McMullin, a one time conservative Republican, who has been at the forefront of the Never Trump movement since 2016 when he took 22 percent of his home state's vote as an Independent Presidential candidate against Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton.

While Donald Trump did twice win Utah, his vote total and margin of victory were well below what Republicans had traditionally received in the state, to say the least, the landslide won by Mitt Romney, now a Utah Senator, in 2012, when he was the GOP Presidential nominee. Members of the LDS Church tend to dominate Utah politics (with non-Mormons in the state considered fairly liberal) and they have had a lot of issues with the personal life and demeanor of Donald Trump. This has remained a point of contention among Mormons nationwide and in Utah as so many non-Democrats of all stripes have found themselves tied more closely to Trump politically as the years have developed.

That experience certainly includes Senator Lee. The young attorney became a prominent legal figure in conservative circles and in 2010, Lee was one of two candidates who at a party convention denied an incumbent Senator, seen as having become too moderate, a chance to appear on a primary ballot. Lee was a vocal adherent of the Tea Party philosophy and narrowly won the primary against a comparable candidate. In overwhelmingly red Utah, the general election was not much of a problem. Upon arriving on Capitol Hill, the new Senator was someone who was often mentioned as a potential Supreme Court nominee of a future Republican President.

In 2016, Lee backed his good friend Ted Cruz for the Republican Presidential nomination. He was perhaps one of the few friends Cruz had in the Senate. The Utah Senator was vocally opposed to the rise of Donald Trump and was part of an angry demonstration on the first day of the convention as anti-Trump forces made a last ditch effort to try to do something to stop the political coronation of Trump.  While Cruz eventually fell in line with Trump, Lee did not vote for the Republican Presidential nominee in 2016 and instead cast what he said was a "protest vote" for Evan McMullin, a Utah Mormon running as a conservative alternative. That same year, Lee easily won reelection against a Democrat opponent, who was one of the first transgender nominees for federal office.

With Trump in the White House though, and perhaps with some thoughts of the SCOTUS in his head, Lee has moved very much closer to Trump. He had no issue in supporting the reelection effort of the Republican President in 2020, along with a significant number of 2016 McMullin voters who then voted to reelect Trump. Lee went even further though trying to talk up the controversial President, comparing him at a rally to a sacred Mormon religious figure. This bit of rhetoric angered many members of the LDS church. After the 2020 election, Lee, along with Cruz, were among the political figures who were working with the White House to try to find a legal avenue to challenge the election. However, he did not join Cruz in voting to not certify the Electoral Votes on January 6, 2021.

The about face on Trump caused a significant problem for many of Lee's former supporters, who might like most of his voting record and admire his intellect, but feel he sold out his principles for political reasons. In 2022, Lee received 71 percent and the endorsement of the Republican Party at the August state convention. Some gadfly candidates were eliminated in that process, but two female Republican candidates, who maintained their anti-Trump stances, gathered enough signatures to face Lee in a June primary. It seemed like they should have worked something out in regards to not splitting the anti-Lee vote. In that primary, the incumbent took 62 percent, enough to win easily, but also a sign of dissatisfaction within the GOP.  State Representative Becky Edwards, (the daughter in law of a legendary late BYU football coach) took 30 percent. The candidacy of businesswoman Ally Isom, who had also been a Gubernatorial aide and LDS church leadership figure fell off at the end and she took just eight percent. Edwards ran as a more moderate Republican while Isom portrayed herself as more conservative. Utah's other Senator, Mitt Romney, a vocal anti-Trump voice in the party from the beginning, went to Washington calling himself a friend and ally of Lee, but he did not endorse anybody in this year's Senate primary. 

In the background of the Utah Republican Senate nomination process, a more significant situation was also going on. Democrats had planned to challenge Lee, and the party's frontrunner was Kael Weston, a former U.S. State Department official who was soundly defeated in a 2020 U.S. House race. Utah had a one term Democrat Congressman from another district but he also lost in 2020 and was not interested in making a Senate run. 

Evan McMullin was running though as an Independent. A former CIA operative, with considerable overseas experience that he has not really been able to talk about, McMullin was a chief policy advisor on Capitol Hill for House Republicans. When it became clear that a conservative alternative was not presenting itself in in the 2016 Presidential general election, the unknown McMullin ran as an Independent. He made the ballot in many states, and of course did the best in Utah, where as mentioned, Senator Mike Lee voted for him to be President of the United States. In Illinois, I wrote in McMullin on my ballot against Trump and Clinton (and Johnson and whomever else.)

The former candidate, who now had some national recognition, at least among news junkies and political watchers, tried to stay politically active while Trump was President. Some have called him self-centered and an opportunist in those efforts. I do not think it is easy for anyone to walk away from a political party and past allies to oppose the new leader of the party and what he represented. In a smaller way, I certainly can relate. While I have tried to hope that there still may one day, hopefully sooner or later, be a retreat from Trumpism in the Republican Party, McMullin has been more pessimistic about that possibility and has considered himself an Independent. Thus far, I have to admit,  he has been more right, at least in the short term.

In a potential three way race, McMullin would take votes away from Lee, but definitely not enough to swing the election to a fairly liberal Democrat, such a Weston, in Utah. However, in a more traditional one on one race, the circumstances could at least be slightly different. Would Democrats, although a distinct minority in the state, be willing to vote for McMullin as a means to oppose Lee, and by extension, Trump? Democrats had some similar machinations in recent cycles. One time it worked in an Alaska Gubernatorial election and another time it failed in a Kansas Senate election. McMullin and his allies attempted to try to convince Democrats to not put forth a candidate and thus support him in a general election. The most prominent of Utah Democrat politicians came to side with McMullin on this strategy, and in April, the party voted, not without some considerable debate and consternation, to endorse his bid. Weston was thus eliminated as a possibility and McMullin, a lifelong conservative Republican, became the de facto nominee of Utah Democrats. Had Lee somehow been defeated in the Republican primary, McMullin said he would still go forward, but that did not appear likely to happen in the first place. 

During his current alliance with Democrats, some accuse McMullin of moving somewhat to the left. Then again, just about anybody who opposes Trump is called a "RINO" these days, or worse, no matter how conservative they once were considered to be. When Roe vs. Wade was overturned by the Supreme Court, McMullin said he was still Pro-Life but had concerns about the implications of the ruling. McMullin has also been saying that if elected, he would remain an Independent, and would not caucus with either party. In reality, that might be hard for any Senator to do, because the parties make committee assignments. Two current members of the Democrat Caucus were elected as Independents of course, including Bernie Sanders of Vermont. If McMullin were to become a Senator, I have to think he would join the Republican Conference in some capacity. It also might not be unthinkable he could join the Democrats unofficially, if they would be in the Senate majority, since that is the avenue he would have used to get elected. Either party would certainly welcome him anyway they can since the balance of power is going to be extremely close. On the totality of issues, McMullin would easily be considered more conservative than any Democrat on Capitol Hill, and his opposition to Trump aside, more conservative than some other Republicans as well.

Of course, McMullin has to defeat Lee for any of that to matter, and that will not be an easy thing. The incumbent has a significantly more campaign money. The advantage for a Republican nominee statewide in Utah is substantial. Many are very angry at McMullin for being a heretic politically. Recently, the candidate revealed that he and his wife (a young widow raising several children that he married shortly before becoming a Senate candidate) were accosted while driving by a man in another vehicle with a gun. Utah has a Republican Governor considered very much unlike Trump, but he has expressed at least minimal support for Lee, saying it was important that Republicans win a U.S Senate majority. However, Mitt Romney, Utah's junior Senator, has declined to endorse a candidate, saying he is friends with both men and will be prepared to work alongside either. In many states, a Romney endorsement would be unwelcomed by a Republican candidate these days, but some in the party are quite upset that Romney is not trying to help Lee stave off the challenge. It is said, and I think probably accurately, that his silence is a tacit endorsement of McMullin.

So in this unconventional race, Lee is left trying to paint his opponent as being unfit to serve in the Senate, despite the fact that he himself once voted for him to be President of the United States. MAGA heads will symbolically explode if McMullin wins this race. I hope that happens, but the odds are that Lee will probably still win. Most polls however, show a very close race, with Lee very narrowly ahead, and a large number of undecided voters. Are the polls accurate? Who are the undecided voters? If they are Democrats reluctant to embrace a Pro-Life conservative like McMullin, that could theoretically spell even worse news for Lee. They may be unaware that there is not going to be a Democrat on the ballot or that the "other" options are not serious contenders. They might more likely though be conflicted Republicans who are torn as to what to do. In theory, those voters tend to usually break away from an incumbent. Some though may choose to think they have to swallow hard and vote for the official Republican nominee, just as they did in sufficient numbers for Trump. It also probably cannot be avoided to speculate that if Hillary Clinton had not been on Utah's Presidential ballot in 2016, McMullin would have probably won the state against Trump.

A case can be made that the Lee vs. McMullin race itself is a Tossup, which is largely flying under the radar nationally. The polls could be wrong though and Lee could win by several points. National Republicans are trying to come to Lee's rescue and warn Utah voters that a vote for McMullin is really a vote for Democrats and that the challenger has used very harsh rhetoric about the Republican base. I would rate the likelihood of McMullin actually being a Senate Democrat lower than him winning the election though.

If I had to guess, I will say Lee holds on narrowly but if McMullin pulls off an upset, he automatically becomes one of the most powerful people in Washington D.C. The template of his win would be seen as something to study nationwide and it would be a tremendous boost to the nascent efforts of "Independents." One way or another, Republicans in Utah and nationwide, will need to continue to think about the future direction of the party.

U.S. Senate races predicted thus far:

13 D (7 Safe, 1 Likely, 2 Leans, 3 Tossup)

19 R (10 Safe, 4 Likely, 4 Leans, 1 Tossup)

Total with predictions thus far:

49 D (36 Holdover, 7 Safe, 1 Likely, 2 Leans, 3 Tossup) 

48 R (29 Holdover, 10 Safe. 4 Likely, 4 Leans, 1 Tossup)