MAGA Mike Lee Losing Utah Senate Race To Challenger In New Survey

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In a newly available survey, Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), who supported efforts to undercut the integrity of the outcome of the 2020 presidential election including in text conversations with then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, is losing to Evan McMullin, an independent challenger backed by the Utah state Democratic Party.

This year, Democrats didn’t nominate their own candidate. Instead, they’re simply supporting McMullin — who received over one-fifth of the vote in Utah during the 2020 presidential election, in which he ran an independent campaign. Polling has consistently shown McMullin’s Senate campaign within single digits of Lee. Now, a Hill Research Consultants poll has found McMullin ahead by four percent — a lead that rises to six percent when those merely leaning towards one of the major contenders are included. Among voters identified as most likely to cast a ballot, McMullin was 10 percent ahead of Lee in the survey. Including leaners, as they’ve been described, saw McMullin with 49 percent and Lee with 43 percent. A Libertarian contender got just four percent, contrasting with the recent Arizona Senate poll showing a candidate affiliated with the minor party in the double digits and seemingly drawing support from Republican Blake Masters.

A late June poll from this same firm saw Lee ahead of McMullin by double digits. At present, Lee’s favorability among the general population — meaning the portion of respondents who shared a favorable view of the candidate when questioned — is significantly behind his unfavorability. At 52 percent, over half of respondents indicated an unfavorable view of Lee, while 42 percent shared a favorable perspective. For McMullin, 47 percent shared a favorable view and 37 percent an unfavorable one, meaning he’s 20 percentage points ahead of Lee on net favorability among Utah voters according to this poll. After the 2020 presidential election, Lee specifically supported the prospect of state legislators getting behind so-called alternate slates of electors for Trump in states Biden won, and he evidently communicated with legislative officials about this idea. There was never any real-world indication that widespread fraud was present or even potentially present, undercutting the idea of any legitimate examination of the facts underlying the false electors push.

Trump recently spoke out on the Utah Senate race, referring to McMullin as “McMuffin”: “McMuffin does not represent the values of Utah, but neither, as you will see in two years, does Mitt Romney, who refuses to endorse his fellow Republican Senator, Mike Lee. Mike should now accept that fact and go on to win a race against a man who should have, based on his failed career as a politician, no chance of winning.” Romney, of course, has been one of the few Republicans in Congress willing to go against Trump on nearly anything.