- Sen. Mike Lee holds strong support among Utah conservatives with a 72% approval rating.
- The Deseret News poll on Thursday also showed 47% of Utah voters approve of Lee's Senate performance.
- It comes as Lee's SAVE America Act is facing opposition from Democrats despite national support for voter ID.
SALT LAKE CITY — Utah Sen. Mike Lee has maintained a strong standing among self-identified conservatives in the Beehive State as the senior senator continues to boost his national standing as one of President Donald Trump's top allies in Congress.
A plurality (47%) of Utah voters say they approve of Lee's performance in the Senate compared to just 37% who say they disapprove, according to the most recent Deseret News/Hinckley Institute of Politics poll. Another 16% say they are unsure.
That approval is especially high among those who describe their ideological leaning as conservative, with 72% of that demographic saying they approve of his job performance. That's compared to 34% of those who identify as moderates and 23% of liberals who say the same, the poll shows.
Those numbers are largely the same when it comes to party affiliation, as 73% of voters who identify as Republicans say they approve of Lee as well as 23% who identify as Democrats, according to the survey. When it comes to independent voters, 24% say they approve.
The approval ratings are in line with Lee's favorability around this time last year when the Deseret News polled how favorable the senior senator was with Utah voters. At the time, 46% of voters said he was favorable, 33% said the opposite, and 21% said they either had no opinion or didn't know.
Lee's popularity with conservatives has remained strong as the senior senator, who describes himself as a constitutional conservative, has pushed for stricter election integrity laws nationwide and a return to original Senate filibuster rules to advance the GOP agenda.
Lee has increasingly pushed for a vote on his Safeguard America Election Integrity Act, or the SAVE America Act, that would implement proof-of-citizenship standards in order to vote in federal elections as well as voter ID requirements to cast a ballot.
"In his role as Utah's senior senator, he has championed election integrity through his SAVE America Act, pushed to enforce the talking filibuster to ensure President Trump's policies can be enacted, pushed for regulatory reform via the REINS Act, promoted border security and immigration reform, and worked to make life more affordable for Utah residents," Dan Hauser, chief strategist for Lee, told the Deseret News in a statement. "Naturally, his efforts are likely to upset those on the left who favored President Biden's — and those of his auto-pen — failed policies."
The SAVE America Act passed the House last week and Lee has been in conversations with Senate leadership and the White House to schedule a vote in the Senate, strategizing ways to avoid a 60-vote filibuster threshold that would require Democratic support — something the minority party has refused to offer.
Voter ID itself is popular across the country, including among Democratic voters. Polling from Pew Research Center in August 2025 showed 95% of Republicans and 71% of Democrats in favor of requiring voters to show some form of photo identification in order to vote.
However, congressional Democrats have largely opposed Lee's legislation, expressing concerns about the requirements to provide physical documents — particularly for those who do not have those readily available.
The poll was conducted Feb. 11-14 by Morning Consult among 769 registered Utah voters and has a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.
