Utah Democrats are pinning their hopes on the internal strife between Spencer Cox and Phil Lyman to split the GOP vote and potentially enable Brian King to secure an unexpected victory in Tuesday’s gubernatorial election. While polling suggests that Lyman’s write-in campaign is eroding Cox’s re-election prospects, it doesn’t appear to be benefiting King in any significant way.
A Noble Predictive Insights poll released Wednesday shows Spencer Cox leading king by 17 points, 43% to 26%. Lyman is in third place, pulling 15% support.
The poll's crosstabs suggest Lyman is successfully peeling GOP voters away from Cox. 55% of Republicans support Cox, while nearly a quarter (22%) support Lyman.
12% of Republican respondents say they back King. To pull an upset, he'll need to attract more support from those voters.
King also needs to attract significant support from Utahns who don't belong to any political party, which is the state's second-largest group of voters.
The survey crosstabs show that Cox and King receive nearly the same level of support from unaffiliated voters, with Cox receiving 31% and King receiving 29%. If that statistical stalemate persists, King has no reasonable path to victory.
Libertarian nominee Robert Latham is supported by 9% of independent voters, while Lyman is favored by 7%.
18% of the independent voters in the survey were either undecided or refused to say which candidate they were backing.
Democratic voters favor King over Cox by an 81%-12% margin, which could also hurt King's chances at the ballot box.
Even though King is a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, he's struggling to garner support from fellow members of Utah's predominant religion.
The poll shows a majority of LDS voters (54%) breaking for Cox. 21% say they are voting for Lyman, while just 13% support King.
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