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SALT LAKE CITY (AP) -- More than half of likely voters surveyed in a recent poll said they would vote for someone other than U.S. Sen. Orrin Hatch if he were up for re-election this year.
The poll results released Tuesday come days after Utah's junior senator, Bob Bennett, failed to make it onto the primary ballot after 18 years in office.
Some delegates at Saturday's GOP convention voted in favor of attorney Mike Lee and businessman Tim Bridgewater, who will face off in a June 22 primary, because they said Bennett had been in office too long. That doesn't bode well for Hatch, who was been in office for 34 years.
But following Bennett's defeat Saturday, Hatch said he wasn't concerned about what the results may say about his odds of victory.
"I always worry about what's going to happen and these results won't make any difference to me," Hatch said.
The poll commissioned by The Salt Lake Tribune found that 14 percent of likely voters are unsure whether they'd support Hatch, 35 percent are inclined to vote for him and 51 percent are inclined to vote for someone else.
The survey of 400 likely Utah voters was conducted by Mason-Dixon Polling & Research Inc. from April 26 to 28 and had a margin of error of 5 percentage points.
The poll did not specify an opponent for Hatch, who is expected to seek a seventh term. Nobody has publicly said they will challenge Hatch.
If Hatch can win the GOP nomination, he would likely cruise to victory in a general election because Utah is so heavily Republican. But among the state's roughly 3,500 delegates, who can decide who the party's nominee is or who is on the primary ballot, Hatch's support is weak. The Tribune poll says 71 percent of delegates would support another candidate.
A new crop of delegates will be elected before Hatch seeks re-election in 2012.
It's not the first time Hatch has faced opposition from delegates. He was nearly forced into a primary in 2000 and was booed at the GOP convention that year. He ultimately won re-election with 66 percent of the vote that year. In 2006, he won re-election with 63 percent of the vote.
(Copyright 2010 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
