Hard pivot toward Trump proves costly for red-state ally

Utah has a different political culture. It can be difficult to navigate that, according to the chair of the state's Republican Party.

The two leading Republican challengers to Lee are campaigning on the premise that Utahns are ready for fresh leadership and that they are disgruntled with Lee.

His relationship with Trump is at the center of their critique. At the 2016 National Republican Convention, Lee protested Trump's nomination. Lee called on Trump to drop out of the race because of the Access Hollywood tape.

After Trump was elected, Lee took a fullMAGA turn. Lee was one of Trump's most loyal allies in the Senate.

Lee was interviewed by Trump as a candidate to fill a Supreme Court seat, but he wouldn't say no if invited. Lee pledged his support to Trump in the spring.

The state's GOP chair said that Trump and Mike criticized each other.

Many Utah Republicans held their noses when Lee pivoted to Trump. In the predominantly Mormon state, Trump has never been as popular as in other conservative states. In Utah, many members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints felt that Trump was bad for the state.

It wasn't enough for Utahns to overcome Lee's use of his Mormon faith as a justification for his support of Trump.

At the October 2020 Trump rally in Arizona, where Lee was in attendance, he didn't expect to speak. Lee offered an impromptu pitch to two of Trump's most unconvinced voting blocs, Hispanics and Mormons.

He dusted off his rusty Spanish from his two-year Mormon mission in Texas, and addressed his comments to his "hermanos hispanohablantes." He looked at his co-congregants.

Lee compared Trump to a prophet in the Book of Mormon, and his Mormon friends thought of him as Captain Moroni. He said that Trump seeks not power, but to pull it down. He doesn't want the praise of the world or the fake news, but he does want the well-being and peace of the American people.

It was an unforgivable mistake. Lee used a Mormon hymn to justify his opposition to the Covid-19 relief bill.

It was a step too far to compare Trump to a holy prophet. According to Deseret News/Hinckley Institute polls, Lee's support among Mormons dropped by eight percentage points.

It doesn't rise to that level of inappropriate if he invoked Captain Moroni. It leaves people with a bad taste in their mouths.

Lee's relationship with Trump isn't the only issue in the primary. Many Utahns don't like the Republican Party's stance on the issue of immigration. Lee's challengers targeted his obstructionism. Those in Lee's inner circle praise his willingness to be a human barricade against bad legislation, but his opponents think he is unwilling to govern.

Lee was the only senator to vote against the bills. Lee was the only senator to oppose the creation of a national historic site at the location of a Japanese internment camp. Lee's communications director told the Associated Press that the senator's objection was to any increase of federal lands.

"Utahns want a more productive, proactive and inclusive type of Republican, and a more productive, proactive, inclusive type of conservative."

Isom has a difficult relationship with her party. She left the GOP in 2016 but has since returned to the party. Political observers in Utah think that Isom is positioning herself as equally conservative, if not more so, than Lee.

Both candidates have used their own distance from the establishment GOP to hammer what they see as Lee's blind allegiance to party and the former president.

The Republican National Convention deemed the Jan. 6 insurrection as legitimate political discourse, but it was quickly denounced by both Romney and Edwards. No comment came from Lee.

Senator Lee's silence is deafening, isn't it?

Isom called on Lee to drop out of the race and honor his commitment to serve only two terms. Twelve years ago, Lee won the seat of the incumbent senator, Bob Bennett, who had broken his promise to serve only two terms. Senate legislation that would limit officeholders to 12 years of service has been supported by Lee.

Gary Herbert said that it was a legitimate criticism of Lee. Men should not be commanded in all things. You should do things that are right and proper even if it is a rule.

Herbert, who has a close relationship with all three GOP candidates, has yet to make an endorsement.

Knocking off Lee won't be easy. His approval rating among Utah voters dropped to 42 percent this month, but early polls show him with a massive lead over both GOP challengers.

Lee cosponsored the First Step Act, the Trump administration's chief legislative achievement, but refused to challenge the results of the 2020 election, drawing Trump. After the insurrection, Trump and Lee didn't speak for a month, and Lee participated in a fundraiser at Mar-a-Lago.

The Utah Senate race has yet to receive an endorsement from Trump.

The Lee campaign declined an interview.

The longer the two Republican challengers are in the race, the greater the risk they run of losing. Multiple sources close to the campaigns confirmed that people have been put out to encourage a conversation about splitting the anti-Lee vote.

Both candidates had similar conversations before they entered the race. Sources say that Sharlee Glenn, founder of the nonprofit group Mormon Women for Ethical Government, spoke to Isom and Edwards about other races before they decided to run for Senate. Glenn was not speaking for the nonpartisan organization.

The director of the University of Utah's Hinckley Institute of Politics said it doesn't appear that they're taking votes away from Lee.

The Utah GOP uses a dual-path nominating system in which prospective candidates can either get on the primary ballot by gathering signatures or by going to the convention. Lee rode the tea party wave in 2010 to oust the incumbent Bennett in the convention, and the top two candidates moved onto the primary.

In the general election, a host of unlikely operators is working to give him a tougher fight than in his two previous reelection campaigns, where he won easily. Ben McAdams, a former Salt Lake County-based Democratic congressman who was defeated in 2020, has spent the last several months campaigning for a candidate outside of his party.

Evan McMullin, the 2016 independent presidential candidate, announced last year that he was entering the Senate race as an independent, and McAdams has been outspoken in his support for the challenger. Lee voted for McMullin in protest of Trump.

McAdams, perhaps the state's most prominent Democrat, considered running, but decided that no Democrat would win a statewide race in Utah.

McAdams has good favorability ratings in Utah. I can tell you that the race is not going to be won by a Democrat.

For the past several weeks, McAdams has invited delegates for the state's upcoming Democratic nominating convention into his home to give them the McMullin sales pitch. He has spoken to over 100 people and they all agree that there is no Democratic candidate for this race.

The approach has incensed Kael Weston, who told the Deseret News it is fundamentally disguising.

One political consultant said that Lee is vulnerable. We don't know how he will respond to that pressure.