Trump has 6-point lead over Clinton in Utah poll

Donald Trump is leading Hillary Clinton by just 6 percentage points in one of the reddest states in the country, according to a Monmouth University poll released Thursday. His advantage, though, is about 1 percent outside the survey’s margin of error.

Trump tops the field of five candidates with 34 percent support among likely voters in Utah. Clinton has 28 percent support, followed by independent conservative candidate Evan McMullin at 20 percent.


Libertarian nominee Gary Johnson and Green Party candidate Jill Stein round out the survey at 9 percent and 1 percent, respectively. Six percent of likely voters are still undecided.

Likely voters in Utah, which has a heavy Mormon population, overwhelmingly have an unfavorable view of the GOP nominee. More than 7 in 10 respondents said they have an unfavorable view of the real estate mogul, whose campaign has been reeling since Friday’s revelation of an “Access Hollywood” video in which Trump is heard talking about sexually assaulting women with impunity because he’s “a star.”

Clinton, however, has a similarly low favorability. Seventy-one percent of likely voters said their impression of the former secretary of state is unfavorable. A quarter of respondents view Clinton favorably, while 19 percent have a favorable view of her opponent.

McMullin has the most positive favorability of the three (28 percent favorable, 6 percent unfavorable) — possibly because two-thirds of respondents have no opinion of him, suggesting he’s relatively unknown by voters in one of the few states in which he’s on the ballot.

“While this race is close, it is unclear whether Clinton or McMullin has the better opportunity to upset Trump,” said Patrick Murray, director of the independent Monmouth University Polling Institute.

A majority of likely voters said Trump lacks the temperament to be president (70 percent) and does not share their values (73 percent). Respondents were largely split on whether Clinton has the right temperament (49 percent said she does; 48 percent said she doesn’t), but 7 in 10 don’t believe she shares their values, either.

More than 90 percent of respondents acknowledged having either watched or listened to the 2005 clip of Trump or heard or read reports about it. Half of those surveyed identified Trump’s comments in the video as “inappropriate” but didn’t think it made him unfit for office.

Almost 40 percent, though, said the comments did make him unfit for the presidency.

Perhaps most telling is that more than two-thirds of the likely voters said they weren’t surprised by what Trump had said. Six percent were shocked, and 18 percent were “surprised but not shocked.”

More than two dozen Republican politicians have abandoned Trump in the wake of his damaging comments, including politicians representing Utah. But despite Trump’s dismal standing in one of the deepest red states, he doesn’t appear to be a drag on other Utah Republicans seeking reelection.

Sen. Mike Lee has a nearly 30-point advantage over Misty Snow in his Senate race, 60 percent to 31 percent, and Gov. Gary Herbert has a 30-plus-point advantage over Mike Weinholtz, 63 percent to 30 percent.

The survey of 403 likely Utah voters was conducted Oct. 10-12 via landlines and cellphones. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.9 percentage points.