Estimated read time: 4-5 minutes
- Ben McAdams leads Utah's Democratic primary poll with 36% support over Nate Blouin, according to an internal campaign poll released by Blouin.
- McAdams and Blouin are the first candidates to officially qualify for the June 23 primary.
SALT LAKE CITY — Two Democrats have officially qualified for the June primary ballot for Utah's newly redrawn 1st Congressional District after meeting the threshold for signature gathering.
Former U.S. Rep. Ben McAdams and state Sen. Nate Blouin are the first candidates in the crowded Democratic primary field to qualify for the ballot, and several other challengers still need to turn in several thousand signatures by the end of next week in order to guarantee their place.
Candidates can also qualify for the primary by winning the support from party delegates at the nominating convention on April 25.
As the race to convention starts up in earnest, a new internal poll released by the Blouin campaign shows McAdams, a former Democratic congressman who served from 2019 to 2021, leading the field with support from 36% of likely primary voters followed by Blouin with 23%. Salt Lake City Councilwoman Eva Lopez Chavez and state Sen. Kathleen Riebe, D-Cottonwood Heights, trail the two apparent front-runners with about 7% each, while the remaining Democratic candidates are polling in the low single digits.
The poll was conducted by Data for Progress, a progressive think tank and polling firm, which surveyed 381 voters primarily via text from March 23 to 26. The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 5 percentage points.
While internal political polls should be taken with a grain of salt, the data provides the first public look at the race for the first Democratic-leaning congressional district Utah has had in recent years. That district was created thanks to a court-ordered map put in place after state lawmakers were found to have violated the state's anti-gerrymandering law known as Proposition 4.
"I don't think Utah has ever had a competitive district so packed for Democrats before," said Leah Murray, the director of Weber State University's Olene S. Walker Institute of Politics and Public Service. "I'm actually not sure what this will look like, because I'm not sure what Democrats do and how they behave in this ecosystem, because I've never seen it before."
McAdams is the most recent Democrat to represent Utah at the federal level, but he won in 2018 in a very different district that required him to win over at least some number of Republicans or conservative-leaning voters.
That's not the case this time around.
Because Utah Democrats tend to lean toward the left end of the political spectrum, Murray said Blouin could be seen as a favorite as the more progressive candidate. But the poll found that McAdams has higher name recognition among likely primary voters, which could explain his lead.
"Name recognition in a primary is so important because that's an intraparty fight," she said. "So you're not really going to make a distinction between yourself and other candidates on issues, because Democrats are going to have ... just different shades on a particular issue. So the name recognition lead, as big as it is for Ben McAdams, is definitely an advantage for him heading into this election cycle."
With the wide field of Democratic hopefuls likely to be whittled down significantly during the convention later this month, the recent poll doesn't capture the dynamics of what will be a race between only a few hopefuls.
A quarter of those surveyed for the poll say they are still undecided, and Blouin was optimistic about the state of the race.
"I'm proud of the work we've done to get within striking distance of the establishment's choice in CD1," Blouin told KSL through a spokesperson. "We are building a campaign focused on the needs of everyday Utahns, and that's why our message resonates with this new district."
A spokesperson for McAdams said, "Ben is the clear front-runner in this race, even based on his opponent's polling. He will continue to work hard to share his long record of service and earn support from his neighbors across this district."
Utah Democratic primaries are open, meaning unaffiliated voters and those registered with other parties can participate, which can further complicate efforts to get an accurate sample of voters who will actually participate in a Democratic primary, Murray said.
Ryan O-Donnell, the executive director of Data for Progress, said the poll "was designed to capture the likely Democratic primary electorate in (District 1) using a combination of voter-file turnout indicators and respondents' stated likelihood of voting in the upcoming primary."
"Our approach reflects both our methodological research and our past experience polling primary races," he told KSL.
The other Democrats vying for the primary are Michael Farrell, Liban Mohamed and Luis Villarreal. The winner of the primary will face Forward Party candidate January Walker, Libertarian Jesse West, and the winner of the Republican primary, which includes Stone Fonua, Jonathan Lopez, Riley Owen and Dave Robinson.
The primary election is June 23, and Election Day is Nov. 3.
