A couple people have posted this: instead of a dem running, Utah democrats have endorsed Evan McMullin, a non Trump independent who leans Republican. Reactions in comments range from “democrats couldn’t find one of their own? Pathetic” to “Democrats are putting Country before Party and making an amazing decision”.
If this is successful, the idea is to have a less extreme Republican who the state might actually vote for, kind of a Romney or Murkowski type senator who votes with Republicans, but will impeach orange man and not try to overthrow elections and other key decisions along those lines.
Utah politics, Quick run through
Utah isn’t as red as it was when I first actually following elections, when it was the reddest state in the country, but it still votes very red. The state is dominated by Republicans, including the senate and house where in great year for dems 2018 one house district voted narrowly for a dem.
Like other states, there’s a big rural/urban split. Salt Lake City is somewhat dem leaning, and everything else apart from those southeastern counties is pretty solidly Republican. The current house of reps map has been gerrymandered to produce 4 red districts, so Salt Lake City isn’t getting its own representative any time soon.
The state’s demographics look friendly to democrats if it wasn;t Mormon (“But if it wasn’t Mormon, it wouldn’t exist” shoo, go away *shuffles imaginatry commenter out of the room*) It’s very white, but also very urbanized and pretty well educated, an equivalent non Mormon state plausibly votes purplish or bluish. The state looks like one that’s worth some investment now, and maybe pays off in a decade or so if politics stays the way it is right now.
McMullin’s elections, Is this a good idea for Democrats?
McMullin was only in one election, so there’s only one comparison I can look at:
2016 Utah Presidential results: Trump 45%, Clinton 26%, McMullin 21%, Johnson 3.5%, Others the rest
2020 Utah Presidential Results: Trump 58%, Biden 38%, Jorgenson 2.5%, others the rest
What this implies:
-In 2016, McMullin + Clinton is slightly more than Trump, but both times the dem vote was a lot less. Points to the state plausibly voting in McMullin, but voting for a dem is really unlikely.
-One commenter suggested dems running to win a three way race. These two election results suggest a Republican wins such a thing, and has a lot of padding/safety margin if voters switch around/new voters aren’t as republican.
-It looks like about equal amounts of McMullin voters went to Biden and Trump from 2016 to 2020. These voters may have split evenly for Clinton and Trump if McMullin wasn’t in the 2016 election, or McMullin may have helped some people transition from Rep to Dem (“Not voting Trump, that guy is nuts, I’m picking that friendlier Republican” “Hmm, didn’t vote Rep that one time, maybe I don’t need to in the future” “Man those reps really are crazy” “Maybe I’ll give dems a better look...”). Running him for senate possibly shifts the state if his running in 2016 really did have such an effect.
-Overall, this looks like a good decision for Utah. For other states, see below.
State of the Party
More worrying is this post’s description of how the decision was made, which suggested a lot of shadiness on McMullin’s part/weaknesses with the Utah party.
If accurate, this would be a big problem, since it allows manipulation in future elections, possibly in statewide/legislative/etc. races, and if Utah does get more blue could cause problems taking advantage of this.
Does it make sense for other states
The people attacking the decision have understandable reasons, lots of dems are way too into bipartisanship, being friendly to Republicans, giving in to moderates, etc. Supporting McMullin equivalents is a decision that only makes sense in strongly red states, for specific races. It’s a general election version of dems joining the Republican party for a primary to pick a less extreme candidate, not something to celebrate a ton or an amazing new strategy or anything like that.
What does this look like in different states:
-In general, the tradeoff is between a better chance of some sort of less extreme candidate getting elected, vs. a smaller chance of a far better candidate getting elected. It makes no sense in swingy or dem leaning states that have a good chance of electing good solid dems anyway. It also makes less sense in inelastic states/states where the Republicans are really, really Republican: In these sorts of states, few Republicans will switch to the McMulin equivalent, so the McMullin is not much more likely to win than a Dem, so may as well run the dem anyway.
-If dems have a Tester or Brown or reverse party Collins equivalent, running a McMullin also makes no sense since said candidates will vote with dems while getting the benefit of crossover voters. Of course, finding such candidates is difficult, and all three of these politicians first got elected when crossover voting was much more common, they might not have won if running for the first time in their most recent elections. (Governor or other non national statewide races this is probably easier, see Beshear, Bel Edwards, Kelly in Kansas, and a few more.)
-Alaska has actually done the McMullin thing before, and may do so again this year. In all of Murkowski’s elections, including the 2010 one where she ran as an independent, she got lots of votes from areas that normally vote dem (heavily native rural areas are most obvious on a map.) This year she is up for reelections again, and it may be that lots of dem voters go with her as a safer option. They also kind of did this with Gross and some other candidates, supporting officially nonpartisan partisan candidates as the substitute Dem.
What makes things tricky this year is 1. Alaska is a lot less red than it used to be, so might soon hit a point where outright dems running is the better option 2. The top 4 ranked choice system means “support an independent” means “enough people rank the McMullin/Murkowski high enough they don’t get squeezed out” (best option is to rank the dem first, with enough McMurkowski support that if the dem doesn’t win, they remain through elimination rounds and win as a backup.) Alaska senate race this year is pretty wild, if you haven’t already, check out the wonder that is the first round ballot.
-Kansas may be another option, words in the internet comments is that more sensible vs. more angry Republicans are a couple factions, and the state is quite red but did elect a dem as governor (who is up this year), for upcoming senate races, maybe governor if Kelly gets voted out, finding such candidates could be a good idea.
-The South is stereotypically where this wouldn’t do so well, with a really hard core demographic split and low third party voting, but with the occasional Bel Edwards maybe endorsing some Republicans makes sense. Vague impression is southern democrats are already doing the “run anyone who isn’t too bad” was of picking candidates, and winning rarely, so McMullins thrown in don’t choke off anyone.
-Montana is a weird one. The presidentially reddish state voted for lots of dems in the senate, so dems there probably want to keep doing this. It’s also possible elections are getting nationalized enough that Montana voters don’t do this enough anymore (Bullock’s margin wasn’t close, though was 10% loss vs. the about 15% presidential one) If Montana does seem to drift nationalized and go Republican, those flexible voters remaining may demand some McMullins running.
-Again, this is only for very red states where Dems aren’t expected to have a chance. Sinema in 2018 turns out to be a mistake, AZ was expected to be competitive so a more standard dem of some sort would have been a preferred option, McMullin equivalents in slightly red to blue states are a mistake all around, unless people get really desperate and its the only way to avoid the worst of Republican scariness.