SALT LAKE CITY (ABC4) – The special primary election to replace Representative Chris Stewart in Utah’s Second Congressional District is just days away.
Three Republican candidates are hoping to get the nod to move on to the general election.
“A very compressed timeline for a very important election. We don’t even have time to learn who these candidates are. It defaults a lot to name ID,” said Jason Perry with the Hinckley Institute of Politics.
He says their most recent polling has Becky Edwards at 32%, Bruce Hough at 11%, and Celeste Maloy at 9%.
But, 47% have not made up their mind yet.
“That’s a big number, 47%. The reason that’s so interesting is we saw almost the exact same thing happen in 2017 in the Third Congressional District. It was just under 50% that didn’t know as well, and a lot of those broke for John Curtis, and so we’ll see if that happens again. It’s a little bit of a lead for Becky Edwards for sure, but no one can say they can call it right now,” Perry said.
Given the condensed, and unusual timeline turnout is a concern.
“Sadly, expecting low turnout. Which is hard about what happened here given the schedule and coming after a holiday. The one thing we can do is go back to 2017 again. Turnout was about 40% of registered Republicans, and that was under a traditional timeline instead of what just happened here. So, my hope is that we get a little more,” he said.
