Blue Wave Rising: GOP House Incumbent Is Losing In Utah

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If a Republican incumbent representative is losing in the state of Utah you know it’s a bad year for the GOP.

And this appears to be the case as incumbent GOP Rep. Mia Love is behind her Democratic challenger, Ben McAdams, by six percentage points in the most recent polling that was done.

Although previously the race has been classified as a toss-up, it now appears to be swinging toward the blue side. And if McAdams actually wins you can bet that he will join the majority party in the House of Representatives since it will mean a Blue Wave has swung control of the lower chamber of Congress to the Democrats.

A poll by Utah’s KUTV 2News, working with polling firm Dixie Strategies, surveyed voters in Utah’s 4th Congressional District last week. They found that current Salt Lake County Mayor McAdams has an impressive lead over Republican incumbent Love. The survey found that 49.5 percent of likely voters said they would vote for McAdams if the election were held today, while 43 percent said they would vote for Love.

Other polls have previously shown Love and McAdams tied, including a New York Times Upshot survey published last week that found both candidates at 45 percent, with 9 percent of respondents undecided.

This new poll also made clear that Utah voters have a much more favorable opinion of McAdams than of Love. An impressive 33.4 percent of respondents said they have a “very favorable” view of McAdams while just 27.3 percent said the same thing about Love.

But perhaps the worst news for Love is that over 34 percent of voters have a “very unfavorable” opinion of her compared to just 16 percent of voters with a “very unfavorable” opinion of McAdams.

Scott Riding, a GOP consultant who is in charge of polling for Love, issued a statement to KUTV saying that he believes their new poll should be viewed very skeptically because it used robodialing to reach voters.

“Robodial polls … have an inaccurate history in Utah,” Riding said in a statement to the news outlet. “The results of this poll are out of step with all other nonpartisan polls. This is certainly an outlier.”

Brian Graham, who runs Dixie Strategies, defended his poll’s accuracy, however.

“Time and again, our polls have proven accurate and we have been rated one of the least biased polls in America,” he said in a statement.

In another major finding the poll also found that 40 percent of Utah voters have a “very unfavorable” view of President Donald Trump, while 29.7 reported they view him “very favorably.”

This is one more indicator that the Blue Wave of 2018 may include the red state of Utah.

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Leo Vidal

I am a lifelong Democrat with a passion for social justice and progressive issues. I have degrees in writing, economics and law from the University of Iowa.