Third-party candidates roil presidential race in Utah

Hillary Clinton is within striking distance of Donald Trump in deep-red Utah because third-party candidates are combining for nearly one-third of the vote, a new poll finds. 

A Monmouth University survey released Thursday found Republican Donald Trump taking 34 percent support, followed by Democrat Hillary Clinton at 28 percent. 

{mosads}Independent candidate Evan McMullin, a Brigham Young University graduate, is at 20 percent, and Libertarian Gary Johnson is at 9 percent. Six percent are undecided. 

It’s the second survey of Utah released this week to find McMullin making it a three-person race in the Beehive State. 

A survey from Y2 Analytics found Trump and Clinton tied at 26 percent, with McMullin at 22 percent Johnson at 14 percent. 

The state has gone for the Republican candidate in every election for more than 50 years, with Mitt Romney carrying the state by nearly 50 points in 2012. 

Utah has only been decided by fewer than 20 points once in the last 50 years, Monmouth said, in 1992 when George H.W. Bush took 43 percent support, followed by independent Ross Perot at 27 percent and Democrat Bill Clinton at 25. 

Utah’s elected officials abandoned Trump in droves over the weekend, following the revelation of his obscene remarks about women. Gov. Gary Herbert, Sen. Mike Lee, House Oversight Committee chairman Jason Chaffetz, and Reps. Chris Stewart and Mia Love, all Republicans, either withdrew their support or called on him to drop out of the race. 

“It is likely that some Republican voters are looking for cues from their state’s party leadership, who have pretty much abandoned Trump en masse,” said Monmouth pollster Patrick Murray. 

About 60 percent of those polled identify as Mormons. Trump has angered many Mormons, who find common cause with other religious and ethnic minorities that the GOP nominee has disparaged. 

And Romney, one of the nation’s most prominent Mormons, has been among Trump’s fiercest critics.

Seventy-three percent of Utah voters say Trump does not share their values, and more than two-thirds say he lacks the temperament to be president. 

The Monmouth University survey of 403 likely voters in Utah was conducted between Oct. 10 and Oct. 12 and has a 4.9 percentage point margin of error.