The trip is part of a Western swing for Mike Pence that will include stops in Reno, Nevada, and Colorado Springs on Wednesday. | AP Photo Pence to make late campaign visit to Utah

With less than two weeks until the election, Mike Pence will be campaigning Wednesday in Utah, a state that last voted for a Democrat for president in 1964.

The Salt Lake City rally was announced Monday evening. The move, so late in the campaign, underscores the danger of a landslide now facing Donald Trump. Recent Utah polls show Trump in a dead heat in the state not just with Hillary Clinton but with independent conservative candidate Evan McMullin.


McMullin, a former House Republican staffer and CIA operative, has almost no national name recognition but is making a serious play in Utah, where the conservative Mormon population has been particularly cold to Trump. McMullin is also a Mormon, as well as a native of Utah and graduate of Brigham Young University.

The trip is part of a Western swing for Pence that will include stops in Reno, Nevada, and Colorado Springs on Wednesday.

Pence said Monday that Clinton’s recent foray into traditional Republican strongholds is simply an effort to “demoralize” Republican voters. But the GOP ticket appears to be taking its struggles in Utah seriously, dispatching one of its most effective surrogates there in the critical closing stretch.

Pence last appeared in Utah on Sept. 1, at the Utah Solutions Summit hosted by Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah). Lee called on Trump to leave the race after a tape surfaced that showed Trump boasting about sexual assault. Pence was introduced at the event by Utah Gov. Gary Herbert, who also withdrew his support for Trump in the wake of the tape.

For his part, Trump will be holding a grand opening and ribbon-cutting at the new Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C. on Wednesday. He will be at a rally later that day in North Carolina.

According to the Almanac of American Politics, Utah has been the most Republican state in seven of the last 10 presidential elections. Four years ago, Republican nominee Mitt Romney drew 72.8 percent of the vote.

