In 2010, Utah Republicans ousted Sen. Bob Bennett at the party’s nominating convention, and according to a new Utah Policy poll, they may be ready to give the state’s other incumbent Senator the boot in 2012.
In the poll, Sen. Orrin Hatch (R) trailed two challengers in a hypothetical primary contest. Forty-eight percent of respondents said they’d support former Governor Jon Huntsman if he made a bid for the party nod, while 23% said they’d back Rep. Jason Chaffetz, and 21% said they’d support Hatch.
The silver lining here for Hatch is that the poll surveyed all political demographics in Utah, not just Republicans, and specifically not just GOP state delegates, who won’t be chosen until next March. Utah has an unusual nominating process in which voters select convention delegates who then choose the party’s nominee, as opposed to a traditional primary in which voters directly choose a nominee. So while the poll’s results show that Utah as a whole might like someone other than Hatch, it is a less reliable indicator of how the delegate count will fall next year.
However, if Hatch were to fend off an intra-party challenge, the poll shows that he could still face a strong challenge in the general election. In a hypothetical head-to-head matchup with Rep. Jim Matheson (D), Hatch led 48% to 41%. Though Hatch holds a decent lead, Matheson still keeps the 34-year incumbent below 50%, and the margin is hardly insurmountable with nearly two years to go before the election.
The Utah Policy poll was conducted among 504 registered voters in Utah, and has a margin of error of 4.5%
