On today’s episode of “Trib Talk,” Tribune reporters Benjamin Wood, Taylor W. Anderson and Taylor Stevens and columnist Robert Gehrke discuss the results of Tuesday’s primary election.
A lightly edited transcription of their discussion is included below.
Benjamin Wood: Hey “Trib Talk” listeners, this is Benjamin Wood.
It is 10:47 p.m. on Tuesday, June 26. Utah’s primary election was today and the polls closed a little less than three hours ago. We still don’t have the final vote count, but in the major races it doesn’t seem to matter. The early results showed quick and seemingly decisive victories for Mitt Romney and Congressman John Curtis, for their respective Republican nominations.
I was in Orem tonight, where Mitt Romney claimed victory for his nomination to replace Sen. Orrin Hatch. At last count, he had about 75 percent of the vote, with his opponent Mike Kennedy picking up the other 25 percent. That big of a lead seems to be and is essentially insurmountable, and it only took about 24 minutes after polls closed for the national media outlets to start calling the race.
But that wasn’t today’s only election. So tonight we’ll be checking in with our colleagues on the Tribune’s political team to see where things stand after election night.
From The Salt Lake Tribune, this is “Trib Talk.”
[Phone dialing]
Taylor W. Anderson: Yo!
Wood: Taylor Anderson, a long night for you. How are you feeling now?
Anderson: I’m feeling OK. It was actually pretty quick as far as John Curtis’ race. First results came in and showed that he was up 75 percent to 25 percent, which seemed to be pretty much in line with what he was expecting.
He didn’t seem nervous. He was sitting at the computer hitting refresh, waiting for Salt Lake County’s results and then Utah County’s results. Both had him remaining steady at 75 percent so we knew within about 20 minutes that John Curtis had run away with this thing and the rest of that was just running around trying to get quotes from him.
This was kind of a repeat from last year. Former Congressman Jason Chaffetz quit for a job at Fox News and that set off a special election for his seat midway through his term.
Chris Herrod stepped up, he’s an ultraconservative former state representative, as did John Curtis who was Provo’s mayor at the time, and a third candidate, Tanner Ainge. John Curtis was kind of the easy winner over that three-way race, and Chris Herrod kind of made it seem like this time around it was a two-way race, 3rd District voters in the largely Utah County district would choose him over John Curtis because it was only two-way and they wanted a conservative.
Well, we found with the results tonight, that wasn’t exactly the case.
Wood: The spread there is pretty similar to what we saw with Romney and Kennedy. To give credit where it’s due, is this final? Is there a chance that Chris Herrod could come back and win this thing?
Anderson: I would say not a chance. We’re still waiting on more results to come in but Curtis’ team was waiting on seeing how he did in Utah County, which is considered more conservative than Salt Lake County. Those results showed him up 2-to-1. Salt Lake County he was up even more than that. Carbon County he was up about 8-to-1, so each county that comes in shows that Curtis is running away with this thing. He’s got the power of the incumbency behind him now. He’s got the money of an incumbent behind him now. And there’s no way Herrod comes back from this.
One of the differences here is, last time around, last year during the primary, The Associated Press called this thing at the end of the night for John Curtis over Chris Herrod and Tanner Ainge. Chris Herrod waited three days before he actually conceded. He was holding out that somehow The Associated Press, which is the gold standard for calling elections, had it wrong.
They didn’t have it wrong. And so his chances are gone tonight.
Wood: So last year it was three days to concede. How long did it take today?
Anderson: Today, it was surprisingly quick and even it seemed to surprise John Curtis. He was sitting at the computer at 8:00 hitting refresh on it to see when results came in from the county clerk. By 8:20 he had a commanding 75-25 percent lead and his phone started ringing at 8:24, it was Chris Herrod calling to concede. So he didn’t expect that, he actually made a quip saying — one of his supporters said “Hey John, why don’t you go into the crowd and hang out with your supporters? You’ll know that you’ve won the race when Chris Herrod calls to concede.” And John Curtis replied, “I’m sorry I don’t have two weeks to wait for that call to come in.”
It was kind of a joke to the last time when it took three days for Herrod to concede, but tonight was a little bit different. I kind of jumped over to try to listen to pick up what I could on that conversation and the only part that I caught was John Curtis saying “Yeah, you know what, you’re right, Chris, we should get together for the good of the party.”
So it seems like even though I wasn’t able to talk to Chris Herrod directly tonight, John Curtis said that those two are trying to mend fences and come together after kind of what was a brutal campaign but an easy campaign for John Curtis.
Wood: Now of course, he hasn’t won until November. Where does this position the congressman looking ahead to the general [election]?
Anderson: This is a staunchly Republican seat, the 3rd District is, as are most of them. The race to watch is in the 4th District, which includes more of Salt Lake County. That’s Mia Love versus Ben McAdams. John Curtis does have a challenger in James Singer and so he’s not assured yet but he’s in the commanding seat as both the incumbent in a staunchly Republican district.
Wood: Taylor Anderson, thanks so much for taking a little time.
Anderson: No doubt. Good luck with the rest of your night.
Wood: Yeah, have a good night.
[Phone dialing]
Stevens: Hello?
Wood: Taylor Stevens, how are you doing?
Stevens: Hi Ben, how are you?
Wood: Doing great. Remind me where you were tonight and what race you were watching?
Stevens: I was watching the state Senate race for District 2 with Derek Kitchen and Jennifer Plumb. And I was at Derek Kitchen’s election party. And they were both Democrats running in that primary to see who was going to face off against the Republican in November.
Wood: How do the results look? Do we have a clear winner?
Stevens: So Kitchen is claiming victory at this point. I have not yet heard back from Jennifer’s campaign on whether or not they are conceding. It looks pretty close at this point, kind of a 4-point spread. Maybe too soon to call, we’ll see how the final results shake out in the next couple days or weeks as we get those in.
Wood: So about 52-48 or so?
Stevens: Yeah. That’s what it’s looking like tonight.
Wood: How many votes is that? Have you looked at the numbers, like how big of a gap in actual votes?
Stevens: Yeah, let me pull that up because I have the older one.
Wood: I only ask because I was looking at the Senate race where a few percentage points is like several thousand votes. I would imagine in your race it’s a little bit smaller.
Stevens: Yeah. I have that pulled up. It looks like Derek has 4,996 and Jennifer has 4,485.
Wood: OK, so 500 or so?
Stevens: Yeah it’s pretty close. 52.69 to 47.31 at this point.
Wood: OK. Interesting. And you said Derek Kitchen, he is claiming victory?
Stevens: Yeah, he had a speech talking about how he is looking forward to facing off in the general election against the Republican. But for Plumb it seems like they think that it’s still early and based on what they’ve heard from their volunteers they seem to think there were people at the polls today. They’re just kind of waiting, waiting to see how everything shakes out I think.
Wood: That’s essentially all the votes that would be left, the people who were physically present at a polling station today, rather than mailing it in early.
Stevens: Yeah that’s my understanding is that they have counted all of the ballots that have already come in. I’m not sure if they have counted the ballots that weren’t postmarked but were dropped.
Wood: I guess we’ll just have to wait and see exactly how many more come in and whether it’s enough to overcome that 4 points.
Stevens: Yeah, it’s a close race.
Wood: For sure. And it’s interesting, in the other races we’ve been covering today there were decisive victories for the major Republican candidates. Yours is kind of the exact opposite, a close race between two Democrats.
Stevens: Yeah exactly. And I think that they have some similar ideological preferences. One thing Kitchen thinks sets him apart, well a couple things he thinks sets him apart, one, that he’s a millennial, two, that he would be the only openly gay member of the Legislature if elected. And just that he has experience.
Jennifer Plumb is a pediatrician and an anti-opioid advocate. But she doesn’t have any past experience working in politics and Kitchen thinks that helps to set him apart in this race.
Wood: Any other big surprises or takeaways from what you observed tonight?
Stevens: I think it’s an interesting race and definitely interesting in Utah when a Democrat has a pretty good chance facing off in November against a Republican. So it’s definitely a race to watch.
Wood: Is it assumed that the winner of this primary will eventually win the seat in November?
Stevens: I don’t think anything is set in stone. There’s definitely a good percentage of voters in the district that are unaffiliated. I think with Jim Dabakis being in that seat for quite some time, people think of it as a bit more of a liberal seat because he’s been very outspoken and very, very loud about his political beliefs. But I don’t think that it’s necessarily a sure shot. But I think definitely an advantage, particularly with Dabakis endorsing Kitchen in the race.
Wood: Taylor Stevens, thanks so much for joining us tonight.
Stevens: Yeah, thanks for having me.
Robert Gehrke: Hey, how you doing?
Wood: Hi Robert Gehrke, political columnist for The Tribune. You kind of had the God’s Eye view of everything happening today while all the rest of us were running around.
Let’s start with the big races before we get into some of the smaller ones. Anything that surprised you with the Romney and Curtis wins? Presumed wins?
Gehrke: Not really. I mean, I think they were both about what we expected them to be. Our polls showed that Romney was up 42 points, I think he ended up winning it by closer to 49.
But you know, this was a foregone conclusion I think for the most part. I think that Curtis’ showing against Herrod was maybe a little surprising in that he dominated him so badly, but these were not going to be close races coming in.
Wood: Now, in both of these cases, Robert, it was the more moderate candidate who prevailed, correct?
Gehrke: Yeah, in both of these cases, yes. You had a candidate who ran hard to the right in both Mike Kennedy and in Chris Herrod. And the more moderate candidate who gathered signatures, who didn’t go the convention route, and ended up in the primary because their opponents did. And the more moderate candidate ended up winning by close to 50 points, which I think, we can obviously read a lot into that.
I think in terms of what this says about the mindset of the convention delegates versus the mindset of the mainstream Republican voters. If you remember at the convention Mitt Romney actually finished behind Mike Kennedy. And here we see a win of close to 50 points, presumably, If the results hold, which I think they will.
And so you’ve got to kind of question what this means for the future of the convention system.
Wood: Now Romney, with the Republican nominations decided now, in these two races, is that a done deal between now and November or is there still drama to be had?
Gehrke: Well I think Jenny Wilson is going to make her case. I think the odds are against her, obviously. In the state you’ve not seen a Democrat win a Senate seat for 40 years now. You’ve not seen a Democrat win statewide since Jan Graham [as attorney general] back in the ’90s. So the odds are obviously against her. Mitt Romney obviously is going to have a lot more money than she does and this is going to be an uphill battle. She’ll make the best case she can, but I think if you’re a betting man, you’d have to bet on Romney in this one.
Wood: Let’s look at one of the more local races up in Davis County. You had talked about this a little this week, how it could be a bellwether for the Trump element in the state. And also today you tweeted that the county delegates had attempted to rig this election and had failed.
I’m wondering if you could maybe describe for us what was at play here and why this race maybe says more than meets the eye?
Gehrke: Well yeah, this is an interesting race up in Davis County. You had a fairly moderate Republican in Ray Ward, the incumbent representative. He’s a doctor. He has backed expansion of medical coverage. He sponsored a bill for birth control in the last session. He was the chairman of the recent Utah School Safety Commission that recommended some changes to the gun laws.
And so this is a fairly middle-of-the-road Republican I think by any standard. And he’s going against a strident conservative in Phill Wright who was basically running because he is a devout proponent of the convention system.
These two guys get into the convention and Ray got about two-thirds of the vote, which normally would be enough to get the nomination. But the Davis County Republican Party changed the rules so he had to get 70 percent of the vote. So they ended up in this primary, Ray Ward still beat, or is beating I guess, Phill Wright 2-to-1.
I think what you take away from this is a couple things. One, that the conventions are pretty much irrelevant. And you can also apply that same lesson again, like we’ve said, to the Mitt Romney/Mike Kennedy race where Kennedy won (in convention) and Romney trounced him. Or to the John Curtis/Chris Herrod race where Curtis trounced him, again, as he did a year ago in the special election to replace Jason Chaffetz.
So the conventions themselves are almost completely irrelevant at this point. That doesn’t mean candidates won’t continue to go to them to kind of pay homage to the parties and ideals or whatever that they see, but the primary is where the real action is, I guess, at this point. And that’s good, I think, because that means the average voter gets to pick their candidates, which is the way it should be.
The other thing about this one is that I think it kind of speaks to where the Republican Party’s mindset is. We’re not dealing, in this particular Ray Ward/Phill Wright race, with a voter who is stridently right-wing. If we were, I think Phill Wright would have fared better.
I think people in Davis County in particular, but I think Republican voters generally speaking, are looking for candidates who are going to try to solve problems and get things done and not espouse these sort of stridently partisan political viewpoints.
Wood: The big question this year has been the Mia Love/Ben McAdams race. Neither of them faced a primary today, but is there anything from today’s elections that suggests anything about what to expect in that race in November?
Gehrke: Well I think maybe what we can discern is, again as you mentioned, the moderate candidates won in each of these races we’ve discussed tonight. I think the voters are more moderate than partisan, and so maybe that plays into the dynamic in the Ben McAdams/Mia Love race.
Both of them, so far, have tried to convince voters that they’re going to be a voice of moderation and they’re not strident conservatives or strident Democrats, they’re just Utahns first. So that’s going to be the message we’re going to hear from these guys.
I think the other thing that you can probably take away from it is that voters are fired up. Tommy Burr pointed this out tonight in his piece, but to get 37, 38 percent turnout in a midterm primary is pretty remarkable and considerably higher than we’ve seen in the past.
I think people are engaged and energized and they’re going to be going out to vote in November. So I think that could probably favor McAdams in the McAdams/Love race because I think there’s probably a little more energy on the Democratic side, but I think that’s a dynamic we’ll have to watch play out.
Wood: Excellent, Robert, thanks so much for joining us.
Gehrke: Thank you, Ben.
Wood: Two last words on the Mitt Romney election tonight. President Donald Trump tweeted out at 9:52 p.m. “Big and conclusive win by Mitt Romney. Congratulations! I look forward to working together — there is so much good to do. A great and loving family will be coming to D.C.”
And also Mitt Romney’s opponent Jenny Wilson wasted no time sending out a fundraising email. The subject line: “Game on.”
“Trib Talk” is produced by Sara Weber, with additional editing by Dan Harrie. Special thanks to Smangarang for the theme music to this week’s episode. We welcome your comments and feedback on sltrib.com, or you can send emails to tribtalk@sltrib.com. You can also tweet to me @BjaminWood or to the show @TribTalk on Twitter.
We’ll be back next week, thanks for listening.