Hillary Clinton's camp is trying to win over Mormons in Utah. | Getty Clinton camp pushes 'Mormons for Hillary'

Targeting voters hesitant to embrace Republican Donald Trump in traditionally deep-red Utah, Hillary Clinton’s campaign launched “Mormons for Hillary” on Tuesday.

The group’s launch, first reported by the Salt Lake Tribune, is the latest move by Clinton’s campaign in Utah, a state that has not gone in favor of a Democratic presidential candidate since 1964. The former secretary of state opened a campaign office in Salt Lake City last month and has published an op-ed in the Deseret News, a newspaper owned by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.


The group announced nearly 120 members, some of which have been lifelong Republicans.

"In 2016, the Republican Party's candidate for president — my party — is belittling and scapegoating people of other religious and ethnic minorities in the harshest language," retired brigadier general and former Davis County, Utah, Republican Party chair David Irvine told the Tribune. "His disdain for them is equaled only by his disdain and crudity toward women. The most enduring pioneer value is charity in its broadest sense, and Utahns looking for those kinds of values should be reading [Clinton's book] 'It Takes a Village' — and voting for Hillary Clinton."

Trump himself has admitted that he is “having a tremendous problem in Utah.”

While Trump has tapped into veins of support with religious voters around the country, reliably-Republican Mormons have been slow to embrace the Manhattan billionaire. Former GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney, perhaps the most well-known Mormon in political circles, has said he will not support Trump and in March delivered a speech condemning him.

In particular, Trump’s proposal to ban Muslims from entering the U.S. has made him a tough sell for Mormon voters whose church has a history of facing persecution. Trump has since backed away from that proposal in favor of one that restricts immigration from countries affected by terrorism, but his earlier proposal damaged him with Utah voters.

In June, Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) attacked Trump as well, noting that Trump’s “religiously intolerant” rhetoric makes him unattractive to Utahans “in part because my state consists of people who are members of a religious minority church. A people who were ordered exterminated by the governor of Missouri in 1838. And, statements like that make them nervous.”