SALT LAKE CITY — Despite being booed and bounced as his own party's nominee, Governor Spencer Cox is massively popular in the state, according to a new poll.
Meanwhile, convention winner Phil Lyman and his running mate, Layne Bangerter, sued the state to put Bangerter on the ballot.
A survey released Monday by Noble Predictive Insights claims the incumbent Republican governor is enjoying 81% of support among GOP voters. Blanding Rep. Phil Lyman, who won the GOP convention on Saturday, sits at 6%.
"Being just a couple months out from the primary, Cox already has the majority of Republicans in his court, and no other candidate is even close to double-digit support. Based on the data, I’d say this race is practically called," said Mike Noble, the CEO of Noble Predictive Insights.
It's the inverse of Saturday's state party convention where Gov. Cox was booed and jeered by some delegates and finished behind Lyman, who earned 67% of the delegate vote to become the party's official convention nominee. But because Utah law allows candidates who gather enough signatures to be on the primary ballot, Cox still advanced on the alternative path.
And the survey once again calls into question the nature of the caucus/convention system versus a broader electorate of Republican voters. Repeatedly, GOP delegates have advanced candidates that are much more conservative than moderate Republican incumbents, only to see those convention candidates defeated in a primary election.
Cox pointed it out in his speech to delegates as they booed him, noting that Governors Herbert and Leavitt faced similar backlash from convention crowds only to overwhelmingly win their primaries. (He also took a shot at delegates noting delegates have booed many former governors and even the a leader of the Relief Society in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints).
In speeches, several hardline party conservatives touted themselves as "convention only" candidates who rejected a signature-gathering path. Others threatened that if elected, they would undo the law that allows signature gathering to earn a spot on the primary ballot in Utah.
Noble Predictive Insights found that overall, those surveyed feel Cox is doing a good job with 57% saying they approve of his leadership. Here's a breakdown of Republican factions specifically:
"Independent voters are also behind Governor Cox (net approval +14), and even Democrats aren’t terribly dissatisfied (-2)," Noble wrote, adding that when asked about the trajectory of the state: "A majority (57%) of voters believe Utah is headed in the right direction, including two-thirds of Republicans and nearly half of Democrats and Independents. Such positive sentiment about the state’s direction coupled with Cox’s high job approval is a victory for the governor, especially compared to neighboring state Arizona, which has been underwater in terms of sentiment on its trajectory since 2022."
"I understand the dynamics of the convention and the primary and the primary’s definitely a heavy lift. He’s the incumbent and he’s got the name recognition," Lyman told FOX 13 News on Monday.
But Lyman said his campaign's own polling shows he is rising in the ranks.
"Whatever we’re doing? We’re making headway, we're making some traction. As long as we keep doing our campaign and people are paying attention, we’re going to have the name recognition and presence to win a primary," he said.
On Monday, Lyman was on Utah's Capitol Hill to advance his Lt. Governor candidate, Layne Bangerter. Questions have been raised about Bangerter's residency and whether he qualifies to be a candidate on the ballot. Bangerter had lived in Utah for decades, but most recently had lived in Idaho before moving back. He served as the deputy Environmental Protection Agency director under President Trump.
Bangerter declined to comment on the situation, but Lyman said his LG pick still met the threshold under the law. Lyman said he was willing to take it to court, if necessary.
"It’s really clear to me, I read it and it says they have to be a resident for five years. The Constitution doesn’t say immediately preceding the election, yet that’s what the elections office wants to say that it says and then on their own paperwork," he said.
Late Monday, the independent adviser overseeing the governor's race, Greg Bell, declared that Bangerter did not meet the residency requirement. Bell, a former Lt. Governor under Gov. Gary Herbert, is overseeing that race after Lt. Governor Deidre Henderson recused herself because she is on the ballot with Cox.
Monday night, Lyman's campaign filed a petition in Salt Lake City's 3rd District Court seeking to be put on the ballot.
"Bangerter is more than 30 years old, and also has resided in Utah for more than 30 years. He meets the requirement for residency of 5 years and also the 30 days prior to the instant election," Lyman and Bangerter's attorney, Chad Shattuck, wrote in the petition.
Also on Monday, Democratic candidate for governor Brian King introduced his Lt. Governor pick at an event at the Utah State Capitol. Rebekah Cummings is a former president of the Utah Library Association and a founder of the "Let Utah Read Coalition," which fights against book bans.
While they will run against whomever emerges from the June GOP primary, King and Cummings were seeking to lure Republicans fed up with intra-party fights.
"While we watch Spencer Cox and Phil Lyman battle it out over the next two months over who can be the most extreme? Brian and I are just looking forward to building a broad coalition of Utahns who care about good government and common sense solutions and focusing on real solutions to real problems that affect their lives," Cummings told reporters on Monday.
