This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2016, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
Hillary Clinton may have gained Bernie Sanders' endorsement Tuesday, but she will have to work to win over his ardent Utah backers.
Take Ashley Wolthuis of Ogden. She is a real-estate agent, new to the Democratic Party, who will represent the state at the Democratic National Convention. If the election were held today, she wouldn't follow Sanders' lead and vote for Clinton. She instead would write in the independent Vermont senator.
"Maybe I will change my mind; I don't know," she said Tuesday. "I'm just focused on the convention and doing everything I can to get more of the issues that matter to me on the platform."
Wolthuis is among Utah's delegates left deflated by the end of Sanders' bid, which drew massive crowds in Salt Lake City and throughout the nation, but couldn't catch Clintons delegate tally.
Due to his landslide win in Utah's Democratic caucus, Sanders' backers hold 29 of the state's 37 delegate slots.
State Rep. Angela Romero, D-Salt Lake City, is one of those Sanders delegates. She introduced him when he appeared at his second rally in Utah, speaking before 3,500 supporters at West High's gym back in March. For Romero and others in attendance, Sanders was a progressive champion, uncompromising in his beliefs and unburdened by corporate money. They saw him leading a political revolution.
Now they are left with a practical decision of what to do next.
"I'm 100 percent behind Bernie, and I understand why he made this decision," Romero said. "Now we have to move forward."
That means a vote for Clinton, though she's not enthusiastic about it.
"Honestly, I can't stomach Donald Trump as president of the United States. He is divisive, and I don't think he truly encompasses all voices," Romero said. "Do I think Hillary is there? No, but do I think she can get there? Yes."
Romero said part of that is on Sanders' supporters to stay engaged and continue to push Clinton to trumpet progressive causes such as increasing the minimum wage and fighting against privatized prisons.
"It is up to individuals like myself to hold her accountable," she said.
Some Sanders supporters are not so hard to convince. Marcus Stevenson liked both Democratic candidates and even spent about two months working on the Clinton campaign in New Hampshire. He ran as a Sanders delegate after the Utah caucus and posted Tuesday on Facebook, "I'm with them," a play on Clinton's campaign slogan "I'm with her."
"It is unfortunate, especially for Utah Democrats, that there will be a lot of Bernie supporters who won't switch over," said Stevenson, who is secretary of the state Democratic Party. "I won't force them to, but I really hope they get involved and vote for our local candidates."
Nationally, a hefty majority of Sanders' backers appears willing to support Clinton in the general election. Two recent polls found that roughly one in five Sanders supporters plan to vote for a third-party rather than back Clinton. Those surveys were conducted before Sanders announced his support of the presumptive Democratic nominee.