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Salt Lake County district attorney’s office accused of mishandling multiple sexual assault cases

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Four women who say the Salt Lake County District Attorney’s Office mishandled their sexual assault reports are asking for an unprecedented step: They want the Utah Supreme Court to assign a special prosecutor to bring their cases to court.

One woman was 17 years old when she says another student sexually assaulted her while they worked on a school project. Another says she was abused by a former coworker. A third says the former Provo police chief raped her. And the fourth reported she was assaulted by a massage therapist.

Salt Lake County District Attorney Sim Gill’s office has declined to file charges against each of the accused men, their petition said.

University of Utah law professor Paul Cassell said the petition filed Tuesday highlights a troubling gap in the criminal justice system: Alleged victims have limited ways to challenge decisions by prosecutors.

“If prosecutors don’t file charges, victims don’t get rights at all,” he said.

The petition is based on a provision in Utah’s original constitution that allowed for the appointment of a lawyer if a county attorney failed to prosecute “according to law.” That appointment power was transferred from district courts to the state supreme court in 1984.

Multiple sexual violence prevention groups issued statements in support of the request for a special prosecutor, calling it an innovative remedy to what they describe as systemwide reluctance to charge sex crimes.

But Gill and attorneys in his office argue the petition ignores multiple options that victims have, and they criticize its timing — three weeks before the general election. Gill is facing a challenger from within his office, deputy district attorney Nathan Evershed.

Gill said Cassell, a former federal judge representing the women along with other attorneys, didn’t try other avenues — including seeking a meeting to ask prosecutors to reconsider — before filing the petition.

Cassell’s strategy “is as irresponsible as it is self-serving,” Gill said in a statement.

Cassell said lawyers had been working on the petition for months and filed it when it was complete. And three of the four women petitioning the state supreme court said they did meet with prosecutors after their cases were declined, asking the office to re-evaluate.

Crystal Madill said she and the officer investigating her case repeatedly asked prosecutors to reconsider and file charges.

Madill, now 30, told police she was assaulted by a massage therapist in Salt Lake City during a February 2017 appointment. She said prosecutors’ refusal to file charges made her feel “unsafe.”

“It made me feel like anything bad could happen to me anywhere and I’d have to have my own back because the justice system doesn’t,” she said.

She and a second woman in the group told The Salt Lake Tribune they unsuccessfully sought help from Utah Attorney General’s Office, another option listed by Gill.

‘There was nothing’

Madill reported her alleged sexual assault to Salt Lake City police two days after her appointment. As she was lying on a table, naked with a sheet over her, she said, the therapist repeatedly touched her genitals and pressed his genitals against her arm.

“I just froze because I didn’t know what to do,” Madill said. “I was naked on a table with a man bigger than me.”

She said she didn’t plan to file a report at first, but then decided to, hoping to prevent the therapist from hurting another client.

A nurse who specializes in sexual assaults found a laceration in Madill’s anus, she said, and prosecutors had that report. Madill said she repeated her account to several prosecutors, reliving the painful experience each time.

“It was almost harder than the assault,” said Madill, who agreed to the use of her name.

Two months after Madill’s initial report, prosecutors concluded there was “insufficient evidence” to move forward, she said.

“I did everything that I needed to do and I did it as strongly as I could and there was nothing,” she said. “I didn’t realize how disappointing and heartbreaking it would be.”

Prosecutors questioned why she sought a massage that would be performed while she was nude, and asked her to think about the impact of charges on the man’s future, she said.

“It was like they were trying to find a vulnerability in me to just accept that I shouldn’t go forward with this,” she said.

The officer she was working with pushed back and met with a senior deputy district attorney, who told him in an email that a prosecution likely wouldn’t be successful, she said. The officer tried again, noting that Madill had a rape kit pending, but prosecutors said even a positive result wouldn’t be enough proof for a conviction, she said.

Madill said she called the Utah Attorney General’s Office, hoping it would pursue charges, but never received a response.

Filing the petition, Madill said, has been encouraging because she’s felt part of a team of women trying to change the process.

‘It’s discouraging, frustrating’

The woman who reported being sexually assaulted as a 17-year-old initially didn’t want to go to police, she told The Tribune, because she was afraid her classmate would retaliate. She said only made a report because she was worried about pregnancy, and she believed she couldn’t tell her pediatrician without mandatory reporting laws forcing a police investigation.

Sure enough, she said, her classmates found out.

“It turned everybody against me,” said the woman, now 18. “I lost all of my friends.”

The Tribune generally does not identify alleged victims in sex crimes.

A Sandy police detective interviewed the teen. The teen’s mother said she asked the detective what her conclusion was.

“She looked at me in the eye and said, ‘She was violently raped,’” the mother recounted.

But the accused classmate refused to interview with police, and the prosecutor’s office declined to file charges, the petition said.

In a six-page letter, the prosecutor who evaluated the teen’s case wrote that he and four other prosecutors agreed that they couldn’t prove a rape case. The teen had told police she froze in fear when her classmate began kissing her in her basement and then rapidly and aggressively removed her clothes.

“However, she failed to say or physically manifest any lack of consent at this time, other than not actively participating,” the letter states.

It is “reasonably possible,” the prosecutor concluded, that the teen’s classmate “liked” her and “wanted to have sex, began kissing her, didn’t notice her giving any indication that she didn’t consent, quickly moved into sex, and still never noticed any lack of consent, as [she] simply didn’t participate.”

The petition for a special prosecutor argues that the district attorney’s office downplayed an important factor: The woman suffers from muscular dystrophy, and her classmate knew that she couldn’t physically fight him or run away.

“She’s delayed physically, she’s home alone in the basement with this individual, and she also has delayed speech as well, so her physical limitations are [significant] in all regards,” said Greg Ferbrache, the woman’s attorney.

Ferbrache asked the Utah Attorney General’s Office to review the case; it found prosecutors had not abused the discretion they have to decide whether to file cases. The woman’s parents met with Gill and another prosecutor to ask why charges were declined. The mother said, “Sim Gill had no answers.”

Gill said his prosecutors reopened the case and re-examined the evidence. They asked the parents for medical records, he said, and when the family refused to provide them, prosecutors couldn’t move forward.

The woman’s mother said collecting hundreds of pages of medical records after years of surgeries and therapies wasn’t realistic, and the family was dubious that prosecutors would take the case seriously, even with those documents. They told Gill they believed enough information about the woman’s disability already had been provided and referred prosecutors to Ferbrache, who said he has received no further contact.

“It didn’t seem to matter to anybody, because a male wanted to do something,” the mother said. “How do you put ‘He liked her’ into a declination [letter]? … She did everything that was asked, and basically was told, ‘Yeah, it happened and we’re not going to do anything.’”

The woman said it’s dangerous for a prosecutor to hold that someone may lawfully escalate sexual contact as long as he or she moves “too fast to notice” signs that a person does not consent — especially from a victim with a disability.

“It’s discouraging, frustrating … and it’s making me regret my decision [to report],” she said.

After her experience, she said, she’d encourage victims to report “only if it were more productive, and not just humiliating.”

Two additional cases declined

The petition also describes the case of a woman who accused former Provo police chief John King of raping her in 2017, when she was volunteering with the department. She was one of five women who this summer settled a lawsuit with the city over sexual misconduct allegations against King, who was asked to resign in March. King had been forced out of the Baltimore Police Department in 2012 after a report that he had sexually assaulted a coworker.

Salt Lake County prosecutors reviewed the woman’s case and declined it because of “evidence problems,” the petition states.

The fourth woman, a 38-year-old who has cerebral palsy, said she was assaulted by a former coworker multiple times in his apartment in 2016. According to the petition, he told her he was a sex offender; he later made inconsistent and evasive statements to police; and DNA samples from the woman’s sexual assault exam matched him. Prosecutors would not charge him, “citing an alleged lack of evidence,” the petition said.

Gill noted that of the sexual assault cases presented to his office by Salt Lake County police agencies over the past two years, his office has filed charges in roughly 39.5 to 45.5 percent, similar to state and federal averages.

(Trent Nelson | The Salt Lake Tribune)
Salt Lake County District Attorney Sim Gill speaks at a news conference in Salt Lake City announcing Salt Lake County's lawsuit against big pharma, Tuesday April 10, 2018.
(Trent Nelson | The Salt Lake Tribune) Salt Lake County District Attorney Sim Gill speaks at a news conference in Salt Lake City announcing Salt Lake County's lawsuit against big pharma, Tuesday April 10, 2018. (Trent Nelson/)

His office is ethically obligated to not prosecute if there is insufficient evidence, in order to protect taxpayer resources and to respect the due process rights of the accused, he said.

"The biggest disservice we could do is file every case that’s brought to us and let the system figure it out,” Gill said.

Appointing a special prosecutor for these four cases raises “a bunch of questions and potential problems that I don’t see the answers to right now,” said Steve Burton, president of the Utah Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers.

“How do you remove a special prosecutor who oversteps his bounds or abuses his power? How is the person funded? Can a judge remove a special prosecutor?” Burton asked. “It sure seems like it has the potential to create grave disparities between suspects. Everybody else’s case in Salt Lake County is handled the same except for a handful of cases that this one attorney is asking to be looked at and handled differently.”

Sometimes, Burton said, cases simply aren’t provable beyond a reasonable doubt.

“For the D.A.’s office to decline cases, there really must be a dearth of evidence," Burton said. He added: “It seems unethical to accuse someone of a crime, force them to get an attorney, bring public allegations against them … if you as prosecutor believe there’s simply not enough evidence to prove the case.”

But groups supporting the petition said often, the quality of evidence is not the problem.

“We know too well that the analysis that leads prosecutors to the decision that a sexual assault case is ‘unlikely to succeed,’ despite sufficient evidence, is rooted in the myths and misconceptions which decades of research has debunked,” wrote leaders of Legal Momentum, a national women’s legal defense and education nonprofit.

The low prosecution rate for sex offenses “denies victims of these life-altering and devastating crimes from having any type of justice; likely contributes to a public perception of a prevalence of false reports; and prevents other victims from reporting similar crimes,” wrote Karen Baker, CEO of the National Sexual Violence Resource Center.

“As a result, public safety is compromised, perpetrators continue to victimize people, and victims are further silenced and traumatized,” her statement said.

Gill defended his prosecutors and said they make themselves available if a survivor wants to challenge a decision. He said those dissatisfied with a charging decision can talk to him, or the Utah attorney general, or can petition for a grand jury. He noted the attorney general pursued a rape case in 2017 after Gill’s office declined to file charges, adding it was later dismissed by a judge.

He critiqued Cassell’s approach of seeking a special prosecutor from the Supreme Court as too expensive, making that kind of aid “available only to victims of wealth" with connections to lawyers or the money to hire them. Gill said he’s willing to work with the professor and lawmakers to draft other solutions.

Petitionby on Scribd


A group of private business leaders want to resurrect Salt Lake City’s abandoned Wingpointe Golf Course. It won’t come cheap.

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(Francisco Kjolseth  |  The Salt Lake Tribune)  People gather at the Wingpointe Golf Course, adjacent to Salt Lake International Airport, on Tuesday, Oct. 16, 2018, for an announcement regarding plans to reopen the course. Congress recently passed the Federal Aviation Administration Act, which included Rep. Chris Stewart's language to allow Salt Lake City to reopen the golf course that closed in 2015.(Francisco Kjolseth  |  The Salt Lake Tribune) The TRAX Green Line passes the Wingpointe Golf Course, which closed in November 2015. Rep. Chris Stewart (R-Utah) announced plans to reopen Wingpointe on Tuesday, Oct. 16, 2018. Congress recently passed the Federal Aviation Administration Act, which included Stewart's language to allow Salt Lake City to reopen the golf course for public enjoyment.(Francisco Kjolseth  |  The Salt Lake Tribune) Rep. Chris Stewart (R-Utah) attends an announcement regarding the plans to reopen Wingpointe Golf Course on Tuesday, Oct. 16, 2018. Congress recently passed the Federal Aviation Administration Act, which included Stewart’s language to allow Salt Lake City to reopen the golf course for public enjoyment.(Francisco Kjolseth  |  The Salt Lake Tribune)  Rep. Chris Stewart (R-Utah) attends an announcement regarding plans to reopen Wingpointe Golf Course on Tuesday, Oct. 16, 2018. Congress recently passed the Federal Aviation Administration Act, which included Stewart’s language to allow Salt Lake City to reopen the golf course for public enjoyment.(Francisco Kjolseth  |  The Salt Lake Tribune)  A tattered flag on a green at Wingpointe Golf Course ages away in the sun since closing in November 2015, but the course could soon see a rebirth after an announcement on Tuesday, Oct. 16, 2018. Congress recently passed the Federal Aviation Administration Act, which included Rep. Chris Stewart's language to allow Salt Lake City to reopen the golf course for public enjoyment.(Francisco Kjolseth  |  The Salt Lake Tribune)  People gather at the Wingpointe Golf Course, adjacent to Salt Lake International Airport, on Tuesday, Oct. 16, 2018, for an announcement regarding plans to reopen the course. Congress recently passed the Federal Aviation Administration Act, which included Rep. Chris Stewart's language to allow Salt Lake City to reopen the golf course  that closed in 2015.(Francisco Kjolseth  |  The Salt Lake Tribune)  Having just been handed a "Make Wingpointe Great Again" hat, Rep. Chris Stewart (R-Utah) attends an announcement regarding plans to reopen Wingpointe Golf Course on Tuesday, Oct. 16, 2018. Congress recently passed the Federal Aviation Administration Act, which included Stewart's language to allow Salt Lake City to reopen the golf course for public enjoyment.(Francisco Kjolseth  | The Salt Lake Tribune) In disrepair since November 2015, the Wingpointe Golf Course adjacent to Salt Lake International Airport could soon see a rebirth. Congress recently passed the Federal Aviation Administration Act, which included Rep. Chris Stewart's (R-Utah) language to allow Salt Lake City to reopen the golf course for public enjoyment.(Francisco Kjolseth  |  The Salt Lake Tribune)  Golf equipment sits idle and in disrepair since the Wingpointe Golf Course closed in November 2015, but the course could soon seen a rebirth after an announcement on Tuesday, Oct. 16, 2018. Congress recently passed the Federal Aviation Administration Act, which included Rep. Chris Stewart's language to allow Salt Lake City to reopen the golf course for public enjoyment.(Francisco Kjolseth  |  The Salt Lake Tribune)  In disrepair since closing in November 2015, the Wingpointe Golf Course could soon seen a rebirth after an announcement on Tuesday, Oct. 16, 2018. Congress recently passed the Federal Aviation Administration Act, which included Rep. Chris Stewart's language to allow Salt Lake City to reopen the golf course for public enjoyment.(Francisco Kjolseth  |  The Salt Lake Tribune)  The 200-yard driving range marker at Wingpointe Golf Course ages away in the sun since the course closed in November 2015, but it could soon see a rebirth after an announcement on Tuesday, Oct. 16, 2018. Congress recently passed the Federal Aviation Administration Act, which included Rep. Chris Stewart's language to allow Salt Lake City to reopen the golf course for public enjoyment.(Francisco Kjolseth  |  The Salt Lake Tribune)  Golf equipment sits idle and in disrepair since the Wingpointe Golf Course closed in November 2015, but the course could soon seen a rebirth after an announcement on Tuesday, Oct. 16, 2018. Congress recently passed the Federal Aviation Administration Act, which included Rep. Chris Stewart's language to allow Salt Lake City to reopen the golf course for public enjoyment.(Francisco Kjolseth  |  The Salt Lake Tribune)  In disrepair since closing in November 2015, the Wingpointe Golf Course could soon seen a rebirth after an announcement on Tuesday, Oct. 16, 2018. Congress recently passed the Federal Aviation Administration Act, which included Utah Rep. Chris Stewart's language to allow Salt Lake City to reopen the golf course for public enjoyment.(Francisco Kjolseth  |  The Salt Lake Tribune)  Golf equipment sits idle and in disrepair since the Wingpointe Golf Course closed in November 2015, but the course could soon seen a rebirth after an announcement on Tuesday, Oct. 16, 2018. Congress recently passed the Federal Aviation Administration Act, which included Rep. Chris Stewart's language to allow Salt Lake City to reopen the golf course for public enjoyment.(Francisco Kjolseth  |  The Salt Lake Tribune)  Rep. Chris Stewart (R-Utah), left, joins David Shipley of the Wingpointe Community Initiative Inc. on Tuesday, Oct. 16, 2018, as they attend an announcement regarding plans to reopen Wingpointe Golf Course. Congress recently passed the Federal Aviation Administration Act, which included Stewart's language to allow Salt Lake City to reopen the golf course for public enjoyment.(Francisco Kjolseth  |  The Salt Lake Tribune)  A sample score card and concept golf course configuration are on display at Wingpointe Golf Course near the airport, where Rep. Chris Stewart (R-Utah) joined a Tuesday, Oct. 16, 2018, announcement regarding the plans to reopen the course. Congress recently passed the Federal Aviation Administration Act, which included Stewart's language to allow Salt Lake City to reopen the golf course for public enjoyment.(Francisco Kjolseth  | The Salt Lake Tribune)  Golf equipment sits idle and in disrepair since the Wingpointe Golf Course closed in November 2015, but the course could soon seen a rebirth after an announcement on Tuesday, Oct. 16, 2018. Congress recently passed the Federal Aviation Administration Act, which included Rep. Chris Stewart's language to allow Salt Lake City to reopen the golf course for public enjoyment.(Francisco Kjolseth  |  The Salt Lake Tribune)  Press, supporters and city officials gather at Wingpointe Golf Course on Tuesday, Oct. 16, 2018, for an announcement that could bring the course back to life after it closed down in November 2015. Congress recently passed the Federal Aviation Administration Act, which included Rep, Chris Stewart's language to allow Salt Lake City to reopen the golf course for public enjoyment.

As he drove one of his out-of-state clients to the Salt Lake City International Airport, local businessman David Shipley tried to explain the abandoned clubhouse and dead grass in an adjacent parcel that was once home to a “world class” golf course.

Wingpointe, operated by Salt Lake City, was shuttered in 2015 after a series of events involving land use costs and the federal government, Shipley told the businessman, and it has since fallen into disrepair.

“And he looked back at me and he just kind of said, ‘Well, why don’t you do something about it?’” Shipley recalled. “And so that was the motivation for me to get involved.”

Shipley is now the president of Wingpointe Community Inc., a private sector group that’s working to resurrect a golf course once thought dead.

It won’t come cheap. The irrigation system will have to be rebuilt, the course redesigned, cart paths pulled up, greens resurfaced and bunkers replaced — all to the tune of around $10 million or $15 million, Shipley said. But he said he and other investors are committed to putting in the money needed to return the course to its former glory, without any cost to taxpayers.

“We want to make sure that when this renovation is completed that the redesign of the golf course, the enhancement of the facilities, is going to be something that will be commensurate with the entrance to a $4 billion airport project,” Shipley said after a public announcement of the plans at a news conference on Tuesday. “The gateway to the city.”

The Arthur Hills-designed links-style course, which lies south of the airport, opened in 1990. The airport bought the site in the 1970s and was leasing it to the city for $1 per year before the Federal Aviation Administration stepped in, in 2012, to insist the airport charge a fair-market rate for the property.

That led to an agreement under which the city, via its dedicated Golf Fund, would pay an increasing annual lease to the airport starting at $55,000 in 2014, rising to a full market-rate price of $150,000 the next year.

City officials said last year that a fair-market rent for the property could be as high as $2.4 million per year — more than twice Wingpointe’s highest-ever annual revenues.

Besides the lease payments, the City Council had in 2016 authorized $67,000 to keep up watering and other minimal maintenance to prevent the course from reverting to its natural state. But last November, the council voted to stop putting money into the course altogether, since it seemed unlikely to ever see action again.

President Donald Trump, however, recently signed a bill that included language from Utah Rep. Chris Stewart allowing the federal government to waive a property tax requirement on property like Wingpointe — making it much more feasible to reopen the course.

“Our objective was just to reauthorize the federal government to waive that property tax requirement,” Stewart told The Salt Lake Tribune on Tuesday. “We want to have that beautiful course back. It’s a beautiful thing for the city and for the community.”

The only obstacle that remains in the way for a projected 2020 reopening of the course — timed with completion of the first phase of reconstruction of the Salt Lake City International Airport — is Salt Lake City’s approval of a long-term land lease for use of the property.

Mayor Jackie Biskupski said she’s been working with Stewart for years on efforts to reopen Wingpointe and is excited to have a conversation with business leaders about what comes next now that Congress has weighed in on the issue.

“That first hurdle was a big hurdle that had to be overcome, and now that we have accomplished that, now we can sit down and work together on what is possible,” Biskupski said. "And that’s an exciting thing for me. It’s an exciting thing for many people in this community and in this state who were big fans of Wingpointe.”

While the project is still in its early phases, Shipley said he wants to see the new course become a permanent, dedicated home for the First Tee of Utah, a nonprofit organization dedicated to getting young people involved in golf. He’d also like the course to become home to the University of Utah’s golf team and to provide anti-recidivism landscaping programs for inmates from the new nearby state prison.

“This golf course is something more than just another course in the city,” Stewart said. “It really had a reputation of being one of the great courses in the country, and I look forward to going out and I want to be there the first day it opens and golf with those guys as we bring back this great course and one more reason for people to visit Salt Lake City.”

Optimism surrounds the Jazz going into Wednesday’s season opener, but this team also knows it’s not going to sneak up on anyone in 2018-19

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Thanks to boasting an ebullient and upward-trending star guard, the NBA’s reigning Defensive Player of the Year, one of the most respected coaches in the game, and arguably their deepest bench in years, there’s an awful lot of optimism surrounding the Utah Jazz.

Most pundits are projecting the team to finish top-four in the West, maybe fifth at worst, and one even forecast Utah’s first NBA Finals appearance in two decades.

So, as the Jazz prepare to build on their surprising 48-win campaign of a season ago when they kick off the 2018-19 season Wednesday night in Sacramento, they all realize they’re not going under the radar this time.

Exactly what that means differs greatly depending on who you ask, though.

Second-year guard Donovan Mitchell said how the team perceives itself is far more important than the fickle whims of former critics now jumping on the bandwagon.

“I always say this — the same people that have us on the radar [now] were the same people that didn’t have us on the radar last year. We’re gonna take that for what it’s worth,” he said. “We’re not gonna look and say, ‘Ohhhh, now we’re — what is it? — five or six in the power rankings. Oh yay!’ We’re the same team that people overlooked and we’re the mindset, the same character. The only difference now is we play on TV a little more.”

Veteran forward Joe Ingles took a more pragmatic approach on the subject.

The issue, as he sees it, is not one of tuning out the noise or avoiding getting caught up in others’ expectations, or lack thereof.

Rather, it’s about the ability to recognize and adjust to and respond to the increased efforts from opponents that the Jazz will surely encounter this season.

“I think we were going into places, and teams were probably either not worried about us or weren’t too concerned, or whatever their thoughts were,” Ingles acknowledged. “We know we’re gonna be scouted, we know Donovan’s gonna be scouted better, or more I should say. That’s just the way it is as you go through years and years and years in the league. It’ll be good for him. But we’ve got to worry about our group. And if we’re prepared like we are, I think we’ll be fine.”

And they all insist they are, indeed, prepared.

“I’m never gonna say we’re where we wanna be, because we can always get better, but we’re where we want to be for starting the season,” said Rudy Gobert. “The goal is to keep getting better, but … I think we’re in a good place.”

Perhaps both figuratively and literally.

After all, starting the season off in Sacramento, the place where the Jazz annihilated their final preseason opponent, would seem to bode well.

While nobody is taking anything for granted, the team does enter its season opener with confidence. Not because of the result itself, but because of how it was achieved.

Gobert cited the team’s “mindset of being physical and trying to stop everything they do. And when we do that, we’re not gonna be easy for anyone to play.” Ingles noted that the Jazz “got better as [preseason] went on.” And Mitchell was pleased that “we played our best basketball the last game,” and expects he and his teammates to “come up with that same type of fire.”

That shouldn’t be a problem.

They’re all eager to start playing games that actually matter.

“Yeah, it’ll be fun. … Even though there were five preseason games, it felt like a long preseason,” Ingles said. “It was really not that long, but yeah, we’re ready to get going. We’re mentally ready, we’re physically ready.”

“The main thing is, it counts now,” added Mitchell. “… Obviously, we’re excited for the season starting. I’m excited to watch basketball too, to be honest with you — to turn the TV on as much as playing. At the end of the day, we cannot come out there and say, ‘Oh, we’re happy to be back.’ We gotta be ready from the beginning.”

Because, this time around, you know everyone will be ready for them.

'Protect these members of the family’: Salt Lake City considers rules that would help prevent inhumane puppy mills

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When Salt Lake City Councilman Charlie Luke saw the puppy, he and his family “fell in love.”

They didn’t know anything about owning a dog, Luke said at Tuesday’s City Council meeting, but they brought him home and made him part of their family. They were at a loss when, two days later, their new pet went into a coma with giardia, an upper respiratory infection and pneumonia.

“I called the pet store back and I’m like, ‘Look, you know, we just got this dog. Can you help us?’” he recounted. “And they said, ‘Well, yeah, you can bring him back and we’ll give you a refund.’ I mean, he’s a puppy. My kids had fallen in love with it, I fell in love with it, my wife was totally attached. You know, it’s not a commodity, yet the pet store treated it as such.”

The family was able to nurse the dog back to health with the help of a veterinarian. Nine years later, he cited the story as a reason he plans to support a new city ordinance that would prohibit pet stores from selling animals not obtained from an animal shelter, control agency, humane society or nonprofit rescue organization.

If passed, the restrictions would aim to prevent “puppy mills” from taking hold in the city, reduce pet overpopulation and ensure animals sold in commercial animal establishments are treated “appropriately and humanely,” according to council documents.

“I think moving in this direction is smart because not only is it the right thing to do, but I think there are a lot of folks who don’t know better,” Luke said.

Pet rescue organizations, including the Humane Society of Utah, have advocated for such an ordinance to the Mayor’s Office and City Council.

“The motto ‘adopt, don’t shop’ is more than a moral and ethical issue, it is a public health and community safety issue as well as fiscally responsible move to avoid tax money used to shelter additional animals in local shelters that already face the challenging endeavor to control pet homelessness,” Gene Baierschmidt, the executive director of the Humane Society of Utah, said in a news release.

Before the council’s meeting on Tuesday, Biskupski’s office welcomed rescue animals from the Humane Society in an effort to promote the proposed regulations. Biskupski has adopted two dogs from local rescue organizations this year — Ava and Ember — and said they are two of the “strongest proponents of this ordinance” in her life.

(Trent Nelson | The Salt Lake Tribune)  
Mayor Jackie Biskupski with Jasper in Salt Lake City on Tuesday Oct. 16, 2018. Several rescue animals visited City Hall from the Humane Society of Utah to promote a proposed ordinance which would prohibit pet stores from selling dogs, cats, and rabbits unless the animals were obtained from an animal shelter, control agency, humane society, or non-profit rescue organization.
(Trent Nelson | The Salt Lake Tribune) Mayor Jackie Biskupski with Jasper in Salt Lake City on Tuesday Oct. 16, 2018. Several rescue animals visited City Hall from the Humane Society of Utah to promote a proposed ordinance which would prohibit pet stores from selling dogs, cats, and rabbits unless the animals were obtained from an animal shelter, control agency, humane society, or non-profit rescue organization. (Trent Nelson/)

“I believe there’s tremendous support for this,” she told The Salt Lake Tribune on Tuesday. “We are a community that has very strong values around our pets, and I see this as in line with those values. I’m very excited to see what happens with the council, but I believe that we’ll see full support from the council on this and be able to move it forward quickly.”

Council Chair Erin Mendenhall and Councilman Chris Wharton also expressed support for the ordinance at the council’s work meeting on Tuesday.

“Unfortunately a lot of times the law treats animals, you know, as chattel or personal property the same as a lamp or a couch, but they’re not the same,” Wharton said. “And when we have laws like this that recognize and protect these members of the family — especially in District 3, where there are more pets in households than there are children — I think we send a message that we recognize that in Salt Lake City.”

The proposal mirrors regulations passed in unincorporated Salt Lake County and in Sandy, which in May became the first Utah city to prohibit the sale of dogs, cats and rabbits in pet stores within city limits.

If adopted, pet store operators would have 90 days to comply with the new rules and any violations of the ordinance would result in a misdemeanor citation. But council staff said Tuesday that all licensed pet stores in Salt Lake City already meet the criteria established in the proposed ordinance.

The council is expected to approve the ordinance at its Nov. 13 meeting.

Red Sox bust open Game 3 of ALCS for 8-2 win over Astros and 2-1 series lead

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Houston • Jackie Bradley Jr. hit a grand slam, Nathan Eovaldi hushed Houston a day after some social media trash talk and the Boston Red Sox beat the Astros 8-2 on Tuesday to take a 2-1 lead in the AL Championship Series.

Steve Pearce hit a tiebreaking solo homer for Boston off Joe Smith in the sixth inning, a drive that sailed just inside the foul pole in left field for a 3-2 lead.

Bradley’s slam capped a five-run burst in the eighth against Roberto Osuna. The Astros closer got two outs but allowed two singles and plunked consecutive batters to force in a run. Bradley then crushed a 1-1 fastball into the right field seats to send Houston fans streaming toward the exits.

Game 4 is Wednesday night, with Boston’s Rick Porcello opposing Charlie Morton.

With his childhood hero and fellow Alvin, Texas, native Nolan Ryan sitting behind the plate, Eovaldi turned in another solid start. Red-hot slugger Alex Bregman had shared video Monday on Instagram of Houston hitting back-to-back-to-back home runs off Eovaldi in his previous outing against the Astros.

USC’s Gustin has surgery, should be ready for NFL workouts

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Los Angeles • Southern California outside linebacker Porter Gustin underwent surgery to repair a broken ankle Tuesday.

He is looking at a four-month recovery after having a metal plate and screw inserted in his right ankle, Trojans coach Clay Helton said Tuesday night, a timetable that would likely allow the talented pass rusher to participate in workouts ahead of the 2019 NFL Draft.

Gustin suffered the injury that ended his senior season late in the fourth quarter of USC’s 31-20 win over Colorado on Saturday night. He had 21 sacks and 33 tackles for loss during his college career, with seven sacks and 10 tackles for loss this season to lead USC in both categories, and projects as one of the top edge defenders available for NFL teams to draft next year.

Helton said it would be impossible for USC to replace Gustin’s contributions to the team on and off the field.

“There’s only one Porter,” Helton said. “I’ve been doing it 24 years and I can count on one hand guys you’ll always remember, and that guy, he’s the definition of what a Trojan is.”

This is the second straight season in which Gustin sustained a season-ending injury. He was limited to four games in 2017 because of toe and biceps injuries, missing the Pac-12 title game and Cotton Bowl.

Gustin graduated from Utah’s Salem Hills High School.

USC (4-2) plays at Utah (4-2) on Saturday night.

Salt Lake City loosens rules on ‘mother-in-law’ apartments

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In its push to address affordable housing, the Salt Lake City Council voted Tuesday to loosen zoning rules on so-called mother-in-law apartments with hopes of opening up new, smaller dwellings across the city’s residential neighborhoods.

A common feature of the city’s housing stock decades ago, so-called accessory dwelling units — basement apartments, ones inside or above garages and those in separate buildings in yards — have for years been limited in Utah’s capital to locales a half-mile or less from Salt Lake City’s TRAX stops.

But after years of debate and public input, the City Council voted 5-1 late Tuesday to approve zoning changes that essentially allow such dwellings citywide, although with some conditions on permitting in certain areas dominated by single-family homes. Only Councilman Charlie Luke was opposed, calling the new rules “unenforceable.”

The city’s new approach also eases some requirements on entrances and setbacks for ADUs, as well as rules for parking by letting driveways and available street parking spaces suffice.

The new rules would require that a property owner live in either the accessory dwelling or the main residence, a move planners said was designed to curtail private absentee owners from buying up ADUs as commercial rentals. Accessory dwelling owners also would be licensed by the city.

The changes are welcomed by many city residents as a way of easing an ongoing housing crunch and helping give homeowners new flexibility. But many other residents have been deeply opposed, warning that large numbers of new pocket dwellings could disrupt parking and the quality of life in established residential areas.

Council Chairwoman Erin Mendenhall urged passage of the changes and praised her colleagues for the “blood, sweat and tears” in analyzing city policy on ADUs over the years. She said the issue not only centered on housing affordability but also would allow residents to “age in place” and not be forced to move as their housing needs change.

“This is not about cheap apartments created overnight, but rather access to housing for the longer term,” Mendenhall said.

After hearing public testimony Tuesday, Councilman Derek Kitchen rejected staff recommendations to delay final approval of the ADU changes for further review. He asked colleagues to overlook uncertainties and approve the measure, “see how it shakes out in our community” and then revisit the ordinance in a few years.

“This will not fix the affordable housing crisis,” but it was worth trying, Kitchen said, even if the dwellings it added to the housing market pushed down rents “only nominally.”

Councilman Chris Wharton said new ADUs spurred by the changes could also provide housing for students, young professionals and lower-income residents in “higher-opportunity” neighborhoods that were safer, had better schools and offered historic character.

Based on a study of similar zoning changes in Denver and Portland, planners estimate they could spur construction of between four and 25 new ADUs per year in Salt Lake City neighborhoods. Officials expect the first ADUs created under the new ordinances to be in homes, although the new rules cover attached and detached dwellings.

But Luke said that after years of discussion, the new rules remained too vague and “had the potential to drastically change the look and feel of neighborhoods.”

“In nine years [of debate],” Luke said, “nobody has been able to tell me how this is going to be enforced and how we’re going to protect the neighborhoods we have.”

Dodgers edge Brewers 2-1 in 13 innings in Game 4 of NLCS

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LOS ANGELES - Cody Bellinger singled home the winning run in the 13th inning, lifting the Los Angeles Dodgers over the Milwaukee Brewers 2-1 on Tuesday night and tying the NL Championship Series at two games apiece.

Bellinger grounded a 3-2 pitch from Junior Guerra into right field, scoring Manny Machado, who slid home and touched the plate with his left hand to beat the tag and finally end an October thriller that took 5 hours, 15 minutes.

Game 5 in the best-of-seven series is Wednesday afternoon at Dodger Stadium, with Wade Miley going for the Brewers against fellow lefty Clayton Kershaw. The teams return to Milwaukee for Game 6 on Friday.

With one out in the 13th, Machado had a broken-bat single to left field and went to second on Guerra's wild pitch. With first base open and slumping Yasmani Grandal on deck followed by the pitcher's spot, the Brewers chose to pitch to Bellinger — and it cost them.

"Honestly, I didn't think he was going to throw me a strike," Bellinger said. "And then once I noticed he was attacking me, I just tried to put the ball in play and hopefully find a hole this time."

Milwaukee manager Craig Counsell said: "I thought it was worth the risk of trying to expand to Bellinger, and if the at-bat goes to Grandal, we walk Grandal."

Bellinger, who entered as a pinch hitter in the sixth, also had the defensive play of the game. He made a diving catch on his belly of a ball hit by Lorenzo Cain leading off the 10th, spreading his arms out and sliding like a snow angel in right field.

"I haven't been out there much," Bellinger said. "But I played right field in the minor leagues a little bit, so it was kind of second nature to me, and I just saw it up in the air, so I just tried to run and grab it."

Both teams used all their position players and wasted numerous chances. Los Angeles went through its entire bullpen.

The Dodgers struck out 17 times — all against Milwaukee relievers — and have whiffed 49 times in the series. The Brewers fanned 15 times.


Utah’s ACT scores inch up again — but most high school graduates are still not college-ready in math, reading or science

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Utah’s ACT scores inched up again this year — edging closer to but still falling below the national average.

“The needle is moving in the right direction,” said Mark Peterson, spokesman for the Utah Board of Education. “We just wish we could move it a lot further and faster.”

The state’s 2018 graduating class scored an average of 20.4 points on the college readiness exam, which has a 36-point scale. The national average, which dipped slightly this year, was 20.8.

Utah administers the test to 100 percent of its public-school seniors, which means its average score tends to be lower than states where the ACT is voluntary and more likely to be completed by only high-achieving or college-bound students.

Because of that, its performance ranks 28th nationwide. But it places second among the 17 states that also give the exam to every graduating student (coming in behind Wisconsin and ahead of Ohio).

(Christopher Cherrington  |  The Salt Lake Tribune)
(Christopher Cherrington | The Salt Lake Tribune)

“You’re testing not only students who are going to college but also those who aren’t necessarily preparing for that outcome,” said ACT spokesman Ed Colby. “The scores tend to be lower — and in most cases significantly lower.”

But Utah’s average, he added, has ticked up for the past two years. In 2017, the state’s average composite score was 20.3. In 2016, it was 20.2.

One-tenth of a point may not seem like much, Colby said, but it’s actually a significant gain for a year’s difference. And it continues an upward trend. “That’s a really good sign. The numbers are encouraging.”

Meanwhile, the nation’s average composite went from 21 last year to 20.8 this year. That’s likely due to more students taking the test and causing a small dip.

Utah’s ACT data include 43,791 students — about 1,600 of whom attend private school or are home-schooled, Peterson said, and tend to bring the score up slightly.

Among demographic groups, white and Asian students in Utah scored the highest, with an average of 21.4 points. Black and American Indian students scored the lowest, with 16.2.

“We need to continue to focus on closing achievement gaps and ensuring each student is academically prepared to succeed after high school,” State Superintendent of Public Instruction Sydnee Dickson said in a statement.

ACT also sets college-readiness benchmarks, which indicate the likelihood that a student would earn a B grade in an entry-level university course. In Utah, 24 percent of students met that for all four test subjects — English, reading, science and math. Nationally, 27 percent did.

The state saw the highest average scores in English: 58 percent. But the majority of students fell below the benchmark in reading at 43 percent, science at 34 percent and math at 36 percent.

“We’re not hiding this,” Peterson said. “There’s plenty of work to do.”

The national score fell to its lowest point in the past 14 years for math, as well, with 40 percent meeting the mark. The results released Wednesday show more than 1.9 million students completed the ACT, amounting to about 55 percent of seniors who graduated in 2018.

The majority of Utah students sent their scores to schools in the state. The top three were the University of Utah, Utah Valley University and Utah State University.

Utahns favor Prop 4 to create an independent redistricting commission by a big margin, poll shows

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By a 2-to-1 margin, Utahns support Proposition 4 to create an independent commission to redraw the state’s political boundaries in its once-every-decade redistricting, a new poll shows.

Even a plurality of Republicans support it, although Democrats charged for decades that big-majority GOP legislators unfairly gerrymandered boundaries here — and Prop 4 grew largely out of that.

“It’s those Ronald Reagan ads they are running,” said Utah Senate Majority Leader Ralph Okerlund, R-Monroe, a Prop 4 opponent. Supporters’ ads show a video of the late president pushing for independent, bipartisan redistricting commissions to combat “un-American” gerrymandering.

“That has a lot of Utah Republicans thinking they are supporting something that is Republican,” Okerlund said. But he contends Prop 4 aims to help Democrats create a safe Democratic congressional district in Salt Lake County and give unelected officials who are not beholden to voters control of drawing districts.

Steve Griffin  |  The Salt Lake Tribune 


Senate Majority Leader Ralph Okerlund, R-Monroe, answers a question about tax legislation during media availability at the Utah Capitol in Salt Lake City, Friday, March 3, 2017.
Steve Griffin | The Salt Lake Tribune Senate Majority Leader Ralph Okerlund, R-Monroe, answers a question about tax legislation during media availability at the Utah Capitol in Salt Lake City, Friday, March 3, 2017.

A new poll by the University of Utah’s Hinckley Institute of Politics for The Salt Lake Tribune shows likely Utah voters favor Prop 4 by a 58 percent to 22 percent margin, with 20 percent undecided.

(Christopher Cherrington  |  The Salt Lake Tribune)
(Christopher Cherrington | The Salt Lake Tribune)

That is up from a June poll, which showed a 50-28 percent margin with 23 percent undecided.

Republicans now favor Prop 4 by a 48-27 percent plurality, while Democrats favor it by a 76-10 spread and unaffiliated voters give it a 63-21 margin.

Supporters have raised big money to put Prop 4 on the ballot and campaign for it — while no organized groups are running ads against it. Utahns for Responsive Government, a political issues committee for supporters, raised $1.46 million this year, with 67 percent of the group’s money coming from out of state.

Jeff Wright, co-chairman of the Better Boundaries group that gathered signatures to put it on the ballot, is a former GOP congressional candidate. Ralph Becker, a Democrat who was two-term mayor of Salt Lake City and a state legislator, is the other co-chairman.

“We’re excited to see an uptick with undecided voters [moving to support Prop 4],” Wright said in a written statement. “As Utahns continue to learn about what Proposition 4 does to improve accountability with the redistricting process, they overwhelmingly support it.”

Steve Griffin  |  The Salt Lake Tribune 


Former Salt Lake City Mayor Ralph Becker, right, and Jeff Wright talk about the formal launch of the Better Boundaries initiative, which will ask voters to create an independent commission to redraw political districts. The pair spoke from the Cicero Group offices in Salt Lake City Thursday, July 20, 2017.
Steve Griffin | The Salt Lake Tribune Former Salt Lake City Mayor Ralph Becker, right, and Jeff Wright talk about the formal launch of the Better Boundaries initiative, which will ask voters to create an independent commission to redraw political districts. The pair spoke from the Cicero Group offices in Salt Lake City Thursday, July 20, 2017.

In official arguments for Prop 4 on the state’s election website, vote.utah.gov, Wright and Becker wrote, “Voters should choose their representatives, not vice versa. Yet under current law, Utah politicians can choose their voters.”

They complain, “Legislators draw their own districts with minimal transparency, oversight or checks on inherent conflicts of interest.”

They say examples of problems that creates include that Holladay “is splintered into four state House districts, two state Senate districts and two congressional districts. Who benefits from this? Holladay voters don’t, but politicians do.”

The proposed commission would be appointed by the governor and legislative leaders, and at least two of its members must be politically unaffiliated. The Legislature could reject any plan proposed by the commission and adopt its own, but would need to outline why — and that could become problematic with voters.

Okerlund, who was co-chairman of a joint redistricting committee in 2011, said members “held over 30 public, open and transparent meetings throughout the state. They received and considered hundreds of public comments and even provided a dedicated website for citizens to draw, submit and comment on maps.”

But the GOP was criticized for holding much of its debate on maps behind closed doors.

Okerlund contends in written comments on vote.utah.gov that Prop 4 “is a cleverly disguised partisan plan to stifle the voice of the people of Utah as represented by the Legislature” to “create an overwhelmingly Democrat congressional district around Salt Lake City.”

He also says gerrymandering is in the eye of the beholder. “Every map that isn’t drawn by me is gerrymandering,” he joked, but said many groups actually feel that way.

Prop 4 comes amid persistent allegations of gerrymandering, including the last time the state redrew boundaries after the 2010 Census — including charges that Democratic areas in Salt Lake County were diced and sliced to dilute that party’s power.

Then-Democratic U.S. Rep. Jim Matheson accused GOP legislators of splitting up his old district three ways to make re-election impossible in the district where he lived — so he chose to run in an adjacent one that included more of his old constituents.

With the unusual move, Matheson barely won re-election — by 768 votes — over GOP challenger Mia Love in 2012. Two years later, he chose not to seek re-election, and Love won the seat. Now Utah’s all-Republican U.S. House delegation has no member from Salt Lake County, the state’s most populous.

Last year, a nationwide Associated Press analysis said Utah Republicans won an average of 64 percent of votes in each legislative district, but gained 83 percent of the seats. It concluded Utah Republicans won three more seats than they likely would have had districts been drawn more objectively.

The new poll was conducted Oct. 3-9 and surveyed 607 likely voters. Its margin of error is plus or minus 4 percentage points.

Utah offers people with a juvenile record a chance at a clean slate with a free expungement clinic

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Those with juvenile offenses on their record have a shot at getting them removed Thursday during Utah’s first ever juvenile expungement clinic.

The clinic will run from 3 to 6 p.m., beginning after the Utah Board of Juvenile Justice’s Clean Slate event for Juvenile Justice Awareness Month. Both events will be held at Weber Valley Youth Services, 1305 S. 700 West, in Ogden.

A person’s juvenile record can affect their ability to get a job and keep custody of their children — even if the charges have been dismissed, according to a news release from the Utah Board of Juvenile Justice.

To qualify for expungement, the applicant must be at least 18. In addition, one year must have passed since they were released from custody or since the case’s termination from juvenile court jurisdiction.

The clinic will put those with juvenile offenses in contact with attorneys, judges and advocates who can help them navigate the expungement process. Records from all judicial districts are eligible for review, according to the news release. Those who apply for expungement at the clinic will have all application fees waived.

Those interested must come to the event in person and provide a valid form of government-issued photo ID. Utah Driving Privilege Cards won’t be accepted. No appointments are necessary.

For more information on the Clean Slate event visit bit.do/cleanslate.

Funeral directors, gathered in Salt Lake City, learn how to handle one of their hardest jobs— helping loved ones after a suicide

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When a person dies by suicide, those left behind are “catapulted on an emotional journey,” says Ronnie Walker, an advocate for survivors of suicide loss.

Walker — whose stepson, Chan, a promising Stanford student who struggled with bipolar disorder and died by suicide at 21 in 1995 — said that when it happens, often the first kind stranger a family member encounters is the person arranging the funeral.

“The grief is bigger than, say, the grief I felt when my mother passed [at 91],” said Walker, founder of Alliance of Hope for Suicide Loss Survivors, an online resource. She spoke at a seminar Tuesday during the National Funeral Directors Association’s international convention, held this week at the Salt Palace Convention Center in Salt Lake City.

A suicide in the family can often make people feel anxious, agitated, numb, confused, sad or dissociated from what’s going on around them, Walker said. She cited statistics that people close to someone who has died by suicide are 10 times more likely to have suicidal thoughts than other people — and are 80 percent more likely to drop out of school or quit their job than those grieving over someone who died of natural causes.

“You really do have to be quite delicate,” said Kurt Soffe, co-owner of Jenkins-Soffe Funeral Chapels in Murray and South Jordan. “The families will experience this explosion of emotion — they’ll get this raw, suffocating emotion. … You walk very slow with that family. If that family is not in a place to make decisions, you invite them to come back the next day.”

Soffe, who is a national spokesman for the convention, said his mortuary may handle around 40 suicide cases a year, among the 650 families for whom it provides funeral services. That number may be low, he said, because often the funeral director is at work before a medical examiner has made an official ruling if, for example, a drug overdose was accidental or deliberate.

“There are times we don’t know the cause of death until the family walks in the door,” Soffe said.

Walker asked people on the forums of Alliance of Hope’s website for comments to pass along to funeral directors, and most expressed gratitude for how directors handled the funeral. Some praised the funeral directors for their professionalism, their calm compassion, and for acting as a go-between for the media and badly behaved family members.

The two suggestions suicide loss survivors made, Walker said, were to ask funeral directors to help decrease the stigma of suicide and to provide specific resources for suicide loss survivors — like the resources Walker’s nonprofit provides.

Soffe said funeral directors understand they are dealing with families often at the lowest point in their lives.

“The No. 1 thing,” he said, “is to reassure them that the manner of death has no bearing on how to pay tribute to a life that’s lived.”

Anyone experiencing suicidal thoughts is asked to call the 24-Hour National Suicide Prevention Hotline, 1-800-273-TALK (8255). Utah also has crisis lines statewide and the SafeUT app offers immediate crisis intervention services for youths and a confidential tip program.

Jennifer Rubin: Trump’s grip on the Midwest was illusory

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In the wake of the 2016 presidential election, political insiders talked about a permanent realignment of the political map. After years in the blue column, the Rust Belt and Upper Midwest were now going to move toward Republicans, we were told. Older white, working-class voters were easy pickings for President Donald Trump’s brand of politics — built on resentment and aimed at retaliation against urban elites, immigrants and globalization itself. Well, it worked once — with a seriously flawed Democratic presidential nominee — and only barely (a shift of fewer than 80,000 votes in three states would have spared us from the entire Trumpian ordeal).

The 2016 results nevertheless prompted Democrats to agonize over their failure to represent the interests of white, working-class voters, especially men. Should they dump cultural issues? Maybe they, too, should start talking about putting the brakes on immigration?

It seems that the freakout was unnecessary and overwrought, and the GOP's grip on formerly blue states was illusory.

“Democratic Senate incumbents in Ohio, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan — all states won by Trump — now appear solid favorites for re-election,” Ronald Brownstein writes. “The party is favored for the governorships in Michigan and Pennsylvania and locked in close races in Wisconsin, Ohio and Iowa — the fifth Midwestern state key to Trump’s 2016 victory. And it could pick up as many as four House seats combined in Iowa and Michigan.” He surmises that Trump “appears to have suffered genuine erosion among working-class white women, largely because of his attempt to repeal the Affordable Care Act, and a sense among many that the improved national economy hasn’t provided them appreciably more security. If that crack in Trump’s armor persists to 2020, it would arguably provide the single most important advance for Democrats in the midterm election.”

Several other factors are likely at play.

First, we cannot stress enough that Hillary Clinton simply was not an option for many voters. It's why Trump keeps bringing her up almost two years after she lost. The Republicans' supposed inroads in the Midwest were in fact just as much a rejection of Clinton, personally and as a representative of the Washington status quo. The voters who switched from President Barack Obama to Trump in the Midwest might have been misguided in their expectations for Trump, but their votes had an internal consistency: They hate professional politicians and feel that the global economy has left them behind. Remove Clinton and find some solid candidates, especially first-time candidates, and Democrats are back in the game.

Second, Trump’s populism was a canard from the get-go, and now it’s obvious even to those who supported him in 2016. When you pass tax cuts for the rich, propose cutting Medicaid, support repeal of the ACA that would hit rural communities hardest, inflict tariffs and defend an administration rife with corruption, good luck trying to convince working-class voters that you are “on their side.” Democrats' bread-and-butter economic appeal — which works for white, working-class voters as well as for suburbanites and urbanites — worked for Obama and still can resonate with many voters.

Third, Trump's misogyny and male grievance crusade come with a cost. Republicans face a problem not just from Democratic and independent women who have been energized, but also from women who are no longer Republican. E.J. Graff writes:

“Fewer and fewer American women identify as Republicans, and that slow migration is speeding up under Trump. ... Trump’s election put this gender shift “on steroids,” [Democratic pollster Anna] Greenberg says. According to Pew, the share of American women voters who identify with or lean toward the Republican Party has dropped 3 percentage points since 2015-from 40 percent to 37 percent-after having been essentially unchanged from 2010 through 2014. By 2017, just 25 percent of American women fully identified as Republicans. That means that when, say, 84 percent of Republican women say they approve of Trump and his actions, or 69 percent of Republican women say they support Kavanaugh, or 64 percent say they, like Trump, don’t find Ford very ‘credible,’ those percentages represent a small and shrinking slice of American women.”

In short, without adopting spurious positions (e.g. limiting legal immigration) or abandoning support for its traditional issues (e.g. gun safety, women's rights), Democrats seem poised to win back what they lost in the Midwest in 2016. The lesson they should take away is simple: Get good candidates and articulate an effective economic message. This really isn't rocket science.

Jennifer Rubin | The Washington Post
Jennifer Rubin | The Washington Post

Jennifer Rubin writes reported opinion from a center-right perspective for The Washington Post.

Paul Waldman: Saudi Arabia is putting money in Trump’s pocket. Is that shaping U.S. policy?

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As hard as it is to resist writing about the fact that today the president of the United States called the porn star to whom he paid hush money "Horseface," I want to focus on a different aspect of this presidency that we're seeing play out right now.

As the apparent murder of Saudi journalist and Post contributor Jamal Khashoggi complicates our relations with Saudi Arabia, we have to ask what the implications are of having a fully transactional presidency, one not just built on "deals" but where policy is determined by what is financially beneficial to the president.

We should begin by reminding ourselves that as awful as Khashoggi's apparent murder is, it's only the latest in a long list of Saudi abuses that administrations both Democratic and Republican have chosen to overlook for decades. The country is a cruel dictatorship that embodies none of the values we as a nation hold dear, like democracy, freedom of expression, freedom of the press, or freedom of religion. But we decided long ago that since the Saudis have a great deal of oil and they provide us with a strategic ally in the Middle East, we'll overlook all that.

There is something unsettling about the fact that Saudi intervention in Yemen's civil war, in which they have reportedly killed thousands of civilians, has received steady American support, while the murder of a single journalist threatens to upend the relationship between the two countries.

Or so you might think. But here's the reality: This will blow over, not only because of the complex relationship between the two countries, but because everything in foreign policy is personal with Trump, and he likes the Saudis.

And why does he like them so much? Because they pay him.

This is not something Trump has been shy about saying. "Saudi Arabia, I get along with all of them. They buy apartments from me. They spend $40 million, $50 million," he said at a rally in Alabama in 2015. "Am I supposed to dislike them? I like them very much."

Trump says so many shocking things that it's sometimes easy to slide right past the most appalling ones, but read that again. Here you have a candidate for president of the United States saying that he is favorably disposed toward a foreign country because they have given him millions of dollars, and all but promising to shape American foreign policy in their favor for that very reason.

"Am I supposed to dislike them?" he asks. How could I possibly dislike them when they pay me?

We should note that it's more than just apartments. Trump has sold many properties to Saudis, and Saudis have invested in Trump projects. And as David Fahrenthold and Jonathan O'Connell report:

"Business from Saudi-connected customers continued to be important after Trump won the presidency. Saudi lobbyists spent $270,000 last year to reserve rooms at Trump's hotel in Washington. Just this year, Trump's hotels in New York and Chicago reported significant upticks in bookings from Saudi visitors."

This is precisely the reason the Framers put in the Constitution a provision saying that neither the president nor other officials could "accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State." If a foreign country is putting money in the president's pocket on an ongoing basis, how in the world can we trust that the decisions he makes will be based on the best interests of the United States and not on his bank account?

This is of more concern with Trump than with any other president in American history. His entire life has been devoted to the accumulation of wealth, as though there were no other goal anyone should consider seeking ("My whole life I've been greedy, greedy, greedy. I've grabbed all the money I could get. I'm so greedy," he has said). He made sure that upon assuming office his businesses would continue to operate and continue to provide avenues for those wishing to further enrich him to do so. And he refuses to release his tax returns, so we have no idea exactly how much money he's getting and from whom.

But today, Trump tweeted this:

"For the record, I have no financial interests in Saudi Arabia (or Russia, for that matter). Any suggestion that I have is just more FAKE NEWS (of which there is plenty)!"

This is the same claim Trump has made with regard to Russia, and it's the same dodge. The point isn't whether Trump has interests in Saudi Arabia, it's whether Saudi Arabia has interests in him. And just as is the case with Russia, they do.

If you're the Saudis, the nice thing about Trump is that he lacks any subtlety whatsoever, so you don't have to wonder how to approach him. He has said explicitly that the way to win his favor is to give him money. He has established means for you to do so - buying Trump properties and staying in Trump hotels. And with his combination of narcissism and insecurity, if you invite him to your country and give him a gold medal, he'll forever be your friend.

Every president has to balance the desire to honor American values with more crass interests like whether a country will buy weapons from us, which Trump also cited as a reason we shouldn’t punish Saudi Arabia for Jamal Khashoggi’s murder (even though they aren’t actually buying what Trump claims). But only Trump gets direct and significant payoffs from other countries, and only Trump is so clear that if you pay him he’ll do what you want. That may not have changed the American stance toward Saudi Arabia too much yet, but we have no idea what’s to come.

|  Courtesy Spike

Paul Waldman, op-ed mug.
| Courtesy Spike Paul Waldman, op-ed mug.

Paul Waldman is an opinion writer for the Plum Line blog. @paulwaldman1

Monica Hesse: The enduring Bill Clinton dilemma

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There's a particular hell we are all dragged back to with nearly every thoughtful #MeToo conversation, and that hell is Bill Clinton. Whether he was an abuser. Whether he was just a horndog. Whether women can still support him (Do they still support him? Which women? Support how?).

On Sunday morning, those questions came up again via the morning news shows, when CBS correspondent Tony Dokoupil asked Hillary Clinton whether her husband should have resigned after the Lewinsky affair.

"Absolutely not," replied the former senator, presidential candidate and secretary of state.

"It wasn't an abuse of power?" Dokoupil pressed.

"No, no," she said. And as Dokoupil raised a skeptical eyebrow at the notion of "the president of the United States (having) a consensual relationship with an intern," she hastened to interject that Lewinsky, 22 at the time, "was an adult."

This, of course, is a preposterous sidestep. Most big-name harassment cases over the past year have involved adult women and adult men. That's what abuse of power in the workplace looks like. Ashley Judd was an adult woman; so were all of Leslie Moonves' alleged victims and all the women Louis C.K. called into a room and whipped out his penis for.

And if you read the preceding paragraph and thought, "Bill Clinton is no Les Moonves, he's more like ____" and if you were then unable to fill in the blank, well, welcome to Bill Clinton hell. Because figuring out how to feel about Bill Clinton seems instrumental in figuring out how to process the current moment, and the discussions always get slippery.

Particularly, I think, for the supporters who looked approvingly at the Family Medical Leave Act, and Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and other things Clinton had done for women in general, and who then politely averted their eyes when it came to what he might have done to women in the specific.

Bill Clinton conversations get slippery because he's not in office anymore, so if he was a monster, he's a defanged one now (albeit a former president with a global platform).

Bill Clinton conversations are slippery because 20 years later, we are still wrestling with how to judge the events of less-woke eras.

As Brett Kavanaugh's Supreme Court confirmation dragged on excruciatingly last month, Bill Clinton's own misdeeds were the whataboutisms brought up by every conservative pundit who wanted Kavanaugh on the bench.

It was a bad-faith argument - what, because we've had sketchy dudes in power in the past, we're now committed to accepting them for all time? - but still: What about Bill Clinton? What kind of psychic reckoning are we overdue to confront?

If the man deserves redemption, he hasn't done much to help his own case. In June, he told NBC's Craig Melvin that he's never apologized to Monica Lewinsky, and that he wouldn't approach the situation any differently today. "I don't think it would be an issue," he said, growing increasingly flustered that the topic was raised at all: "Two-thirds of the American people sided with me," he insisted.

I don't know a single woman who hasn't spent the past year privately litigating every uncomfortable sexual experience of her life - what she did or didn't do, or should or shouldn't have done. So the fact that Clinton apparently hadn't given America's biggest sex scandal much thought made him look like he was either shockingly clueless or a liar.

Or, like he was so hopelessly entitled that he ended up making #MeToo's point even better than its most vocal activists. Yes, Bill. Two-thirds of the American people might had sided with you then. That's because our problems with misogyny are systemic, and not the fault of individual bad men. A large percentage of the American people have been wrong for a very long time.

In today’s Democratic Party, Bill Clinton’s past almost certainly would have ruined him. Multiple allegations of sexual harassment and misconduct, including a rape accusation by Juanita Broaddrick — today, those would be investigated and taken seriously. We would talk about Monica Lewinsky as a human and not as a fat joke.

And many of the people who voted for him in 1992 and 1996 would not vote for him today. That's the refrain I kept hearing from liberal friends and acquaintances, all through the Kavanaugh hearings, and the Donald Trump "Access Hollywood" tape saga, and the wave of powerful men revealed to be serial harassers: If Bill Clinton were running for office now, I would not vote for him.

Add JFK to that list. Add Thomas Jefferson. The list of men we would not vote for now is long.

But the hell of Bill Clinton is that he won't go away. He won't account for his own actions, so we have to account for him.

Bill Clinton conversations get slippery because, at the end of the day, feelings about his guilt or innocence, or his goodness or badness, often came down to whether a person liked him in office.

How much did that cloud our judgment and lower our standards? How did it pave the way for where we are now, where opinions about harassment cases live or die based on whether the accused had a D or R after his name?

The hell of Bill Clinton is the hell of this whole moment in time: Plenty of Americans might make different choices now, but we’re still paying for the choices we made then.

Monica Hesse | The Washington Post
Monica Hesse | The Washington Post

Monica Hesse is a columnist for The Washington Post’s Style section and author of “American Fire.” @MonicaHesse


Gehrke: If voters reject a tax increase for education, it will doom any realistic chance to improve Utah schools

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There’s a question I’ve been asked several times since voters received their ballots in the mail: Why on earth are we being asked to raise the gas tax to pay for education?

It does seem odd. Gas taxes usually pay for roads. Hiking the tax at the pump to pay for schools makes about as much sense as taxing liquor to help pay for school lunches (which, by the way, we also do in this state).

So voters are, perhaps justifiably, a little wary. As one reader who called me recently wondered, if she voted for the gas tax increase, would all the money just end up going to road construction?

Understand this: At its core, a vote for Question 1, while technically nonbinding, is a vote to support infusing about $120 million into our lagging education system. A defeat would doom any chance for a major boost to our schools.

That’s the big picture. The mechanics are a little more complicated — and opponents have used the complexity to their advantage. So, let me break it down.

For decades, Utah lawmakers bent over backward to avoid raising taxes. It forced them to play a shell game, taking money meant for one purpose and using it to try to meet other demands.

Let’s start with the gas tax. Historically, the idea behind the gas tax has been that it should fund construction and maintenance of roads. And for decades, that worked. But as demands increased, legislators resisted increasing the gas tax to keep up with inflation.

By 2013, Utahns were paying a lower percentage of their income toward the gas tax than they had at any time since its inception in 1929, when Studebakers and Ford Model A’s ruled the road, according to a report by the nonpartisan Utah Foundation.

Instead of raising the gas tax, lawmakers would siphon money from other programs, and that got a lot easier in 1996. Until then, K-12 education was paid for exclusively by income tax revenue, and higher education was paid for by sales tax. But voters approved an amendment to the constitution that allowed income tax money to pay for both public and higher education.

The 1996 amendment meant that all that sales tax money that had been paying for colleges and universities could suddenly be spent on other things — things like, you probably guessed it, roads.

On top of that, the Legislature passed a substantial income tax cut under Gov. Jon Huntsman that eroded the education fund, right in time for the state to be walloped by the recession.

Higher ed became the Legislature’s piggy bank as lawmakers pulled money out and spread the education money thinner and thinner.

Nowhere was this diversion more evident than in 2011, when the Legislature adopted SB229, sponsored by Sen. Stuart Adams, which earmarked sales tax money to cover a shortfall in the road construction needs.

In 2015, the Legislature finally found the courage to raise the gas tax, but just by a nickel. With Utah facing a projected $11 billion shortfall in road funding, it’s not nearly enough.

Utah’s shell game of a tax system is broken and unsustainable. And the blame for that falls squarely on state legislators who are more concerned about political fallout than making smart choices about balancing the state’s needs and the state’s revenue.

Senate President Wayne Niederhauser said that a few years ago education advocates came to him proposing an increase in the income tax. The solution, he suggested, wasn’t income tax; it was raising the gas tax and rebalancing the entire tax structure.

Which brings us back to Question 1, the ballot question asking voters to support a 10-cent-per-gallon gas tax increase.

If we vote for this, then legislators have said they would put the $120 million in gas tax money into roads, and all that money that had been diverted to asphalt can go back into education.

It won’t simply go back into some giant pool of education dollars — it will go directly to local schools, where local councils can decide how it can best be used. On average, per-pupil spending will increase by $150. If you want, you can go to ourschoolsnow.com and see exactly how much will go directly to your child’s school.

“I think it’s a giant step in the right direction to create a better balance for both our infrastructure and education,” Niederhauser said. “We have limited funds, and we need to address that.”

Unfortunately, opponents of the education increase, namely the Koch Brothers-bankrolled Americans for Prosperity, are using the complexity to confuse voters. And it may be working.

The poll by The Salt Lake Tribune and Hinckley Institute of Politics out this week showed that 51 percent of registered voters oppose the gas tax increase — a really bad spot for proponents to be in, since typically undecided voters end up voting no on ballot propositions, especially tax hikes.

Theoretically, the Legislature could still boost education funding if the ballot question fails.

“They won’t. I guarantee it,” said Niederhauser, who is retiring at the end of the year. It would be better not to have put it on the ballot at all, he said, than have it fail, “because then you have a public opinion of voters that don’t want the increase … almost a mandate not to do more.”

It would relegate Utah schools to the bottom of the pack for the foreseeable future; it would mean years of graduates unprepared for college or the job market; and it would leave businesses without a qualified workforce.

We can’t let that happen. Don’t let the opponents muddy the waters. Understand the issue and talk to your friends and neighbors; encourage them to vote for Question 1. It’s the best way — the only way, really — we will see a measurable improvement in the state’s starved school system.

Political Cornflakes: The number of uncontested seats in this year’s midterm elections is the lowest it’s been in a generation

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This year’s midterm elections are more vigorously contested than those in the past — mostly because more Democratic women are running for office. Another trend shows Democrats are challenging Republican incumbents far more often than Republicans are challenging Democratic incumbents. Among the 435 House seats, Democrats are running in 428, while Republicans are running in only 393. The number of contested seats has increased even more dramatically in state legislative elections, where this year’s uncontested rate is the lowest it’s been in 46 years. [WaPost]

Happy Wednesday.

Topping the news: Four women who say Salt Lake County District Attorney Sim Gill’s office mishandled their sexual assault cases want the Utah Supreme Court to assign a special prosecutor to bring their cases to court — a way to remedy what sexual violence prevention groups describe as systemwide reluctance to charge sex crimes. [Trib] [Fox13]

-> Support for Proposition 2, Utah’s medical marijuana ballot initiative, has declined in recent weeks, according to a new poll by the Hinckley Institute of Politics at the University of Utah. The survey found that 51 percent of people said they were voting for Prop 2 — a significant decline in popularity likely caused by a new compromise proposal pitched for a special legislative session in November. [Trib]

-> The Federal Election Commission did not back a claim U.S. Rep. Mia Love made during a debate on Monday night, saying it had not made a statement that the House candidate hadn’t violated any laws or rules by raising $1 million for a primary election that never occurred. [Trib] [Fox13]

Tweets of the day: From @kylegriffin1: “TORONTO (AP) — Retail marijuana sales begin in Canada, now largest country with legal national pot marketplace.”

-> From @RobynUrback: “I have a feeling that the legalization of marijuana will follow the Extremely Canadian™ path of things that we talk about ad nauseam until just after it happens and then just largely forget about (aside: BRING BACK THE PENNY)”

-> From @sgj3: “#utpol In a matter of days I will be asked to vote for Justice Himonas, Judge Griffin et al. How am I supposed to know if any of them ever threw ice at someone else whilst in school?”

Happy Birthday: To state Rep. Michael Noel, lobbyist Steve Barth and Kelli Lucero, constituent services director for Gov. Gary Herbert.

In other news: The American Civil Liberties Union of Utah is critiquing Operation Rio Grande, which seeks to reduce lawlessness around Salt Lake City’s homeless shelter, for making too many arrests without improving other programs to decrease homelessness and drug abuse. [Trib] [DNews]

-> The Utah Department of Workforce Services is planning to reallocate funds for underutilized after-school programs to help families on the brink of homelessness. [KUTV]

-> The fate of the Utah Science, Technology, and Research initiative — which helps support the pipeline that carries research innovations into for-profit commercialization — is still in question after the Legislature temporarily delayed a vote on the program on Tuesday following concerns about its efficacy. [DNews]

-> A measure passed in March that would make it possible for pharmacists to give birth control over the counter, provided that a patient has a two year standing order from a doctor prescribing it, still needs to be approved by the executive branch before it can be officially implemented. [DNews]

-> A private sector group is one step closer to resurrecting the Wingpointe Golf Course near the Salt Lake City International Airport, thanks to a bill signed into law recently by President Donald Trump. [Trib]

-> The Salt Lake City Council is considering a new ordinance that would prohibit pet stores from selling animals obtained from puppy mills, in the hopes of preventing animal cruelty and pet overpopulation. [Trib]

-> With a 5-1 vote, the City Council voted Tuesday to loosen rules on so-called mother-in-law apartments, which have been welcomed by some Salt Lake residents as a way of easing an ongoing housing crunch but opposed by others, who warn large numbers of new pocket dwellings could disrupt parking and quality of life in established residential areas. [Trib]

-> Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch joked in a tweet that he is 1/1032 T-Rex after Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Massachusetts, released her DNA test results on Monday in an effort to prove her Native American heritage. [KUTV]

-> The owners of The Complex, a well-known concert venue in downtown Salt Lake City, have been accused by federal prosecutors of drug trafficking and using the money earned to pay for concerts. The trial is set for December. [Trib] [ABC4] [KUTV]

-> The Unified Fire Authority took its next step Tuesday in determining whether to attempt recovering hundreds of thousands of dollars in taxpayer funds that state auditors last year concluded were misused by its top administrators. [Trib]

-> Pat Bagley illustrates a member of the GOP indulging in incentives brought by stripping government programs away from those in lower income brackets. [Trib]

Nationally: Secretary of State Mike Pompeo met Tuesday with the Saudi Arabian king, the crown prince and other top officials to discuss the death of a prominent Saudi journalist in the country’s consulate in Turkey. Trump said that serious punishments would result should it be proven that the journalist was killed by the Saudi throne, but he doesn’t want it to affect U.S.-Saudi trade agreements. [NYTimes] [BBC] [CNN] [WSJ]

-> In key congressional races, Democratic candidates have been raising more funds than their GOP rivals, out-financing Republicans in 32 out of 45 of the closest House races. But conservative candidates have a lot of big checks coming in as well, keeping them financially competitive going into the midterm elections. [NYTimes]

-> Defense Secretary Jim Mattis sought to dismiss reports that his job is in danger and said he identifies as neither a Democrat or a Republican, one day after Trump suggested Mattis is a democrat. The defense secretary said he is “proudly apolitical” and was brought up to obey the elected commander in chief — “whoever that may be." [NYTimes]

Got a tip? A birthday, wedding or anniversary to announce? Send us a note to cornflakes@sltrib.com. And if you want Cornflakes to arrive in your email inbox each morning, subscribe here.

-- Taylor Stevens and Cara MacDonald

https://twitter.com/tstevensmedia and Twitter.com/carammacdonald

A UVU wrestler has been suspended after being charged with rape

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A Utah Valley University wrestler has been charged with rape and suspended from the team.

Dayton Lee Racer, 22, has been charged with first-degree felony rape after a 20-year-old woman reported on June 24 that he sexually assaulted her at the Bonanza Campout Music Festival at River’s Edge Resort in Heber.

According to the probable cause statement, the woman told police she was attending the event with friends when she entered Racer’s tent. She told him “multiple times that she was not there for anything sexual.” She said the two of them took the drug Molly and drank alcohol, and “the next thing she remembered was waking up in the tent in the morning” with Racer sexually assaulting her.

A UVU spokesman confirmed that Racer is a student there and joined the wrestling team this season. He spent the previous two seasons wrestling at Iowa Central Community College, where he won a NJCAA national championship in 2017, and Oregon’s Clackamas Community College.

UVU said in a statement that Racer has been suspended from the team, adding, “We are aware of the allegations, but can’t comment on a pending investigation.”

Racer’s initial court appearance is scheduled for Nov. 7.

With help from a Utah classroom, the popular language app Duolingo is adding Navajo courses

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Albuquerque, N.M. • A popular language-learning app is adding Navajo to its portfolio.

KOB-TV reports that Duolingo has begun offering Navajo, or Dine, as a language option for learning on the mobile app.

Clayton Long, who is the head of the bilingual education for San Juan School District in Utah, tells the station that he and his students collaborated to develop the language lessons on the app.

The first of the courses were unveiled last week.

Long says a total of nine lessons he and others developed will be released in the coming months as part of the ongoing Duolingo project.

Republican Reps. Bishop and Curtis have clear path to re-election, new poll shows

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A new poll shows the incumbent Republican congressmen in Utah’s 1st and 3rd districts appear safe as they head into the final weeks of the election, with what seem to be insurmountable leads over their opponents and strong job-approval ratings.

A Salt Lake Tribune-Hinckley Institute of Politics poll, conducted Oct. 3-9, shows Rep. Rob Bishop, who serves northern Utah’s 1st District, with a 32-point lead over his opponents. In the 3rd District, Rep. John Curtis is ahead by an even wider margin of 54 points.

That doesn’t come as a surprise to Jason Perry, director of the Hinckley Institute at the University of Utah, who said incumbents always have a “considerable advantage” in an election.

“They have a platform,” he said. “They have the podium to push their issues forward. They usually have had a chance to raise some money. Their name ID has had a chance to increase in the state. And the reality is it’s just hard to take on an incumbent — particularly an incumbent that has a high approval rating.”

The poll, with an average of about 150 registered voters in each district, has a margin of error of plus or minus 8 percentage points. It shows Curtis and Bishop both with a 57 percent approval rating among registered voters in their areas.

Curtis, who has been seemingly nonstop campaigning since before he took over former Rep. Jason Chaffetz’s seat in last year’s special election, said he’s happy to see his approval numbers trending “in the right direction.”

But because 23 percent of the respondents said they didn’t know enough to rate his performance, and with a 20 percent disapproval rating overall, Curtis said “there’s still a lot of work to do” to reach out to voters who haven’t heard his message yet.

Still, the poll shows he’ll likely earn his first full term in November, with 67 percent of respondents expressing support for the former Provo mayor. Those numbers are “gratifying,” he said, but they won’t change his campaign strategy.

(Christopher Cherrington  |  The Salt Lake Tribune)
(Christopher Cherrington | The Salt Lake Tribune)

“As a candidate, you never take it for granted, no matter what the polls say,” he said. “You still keep your head down and work hard and keep working like every vote matters.”

Curtis faces a challenge in November from Democrat James Singer. The sociologist and millennial may also be the first Navajo candidate to run for the U.S. House in Utah, and he and Curtis remain split on a number of issues — from public lands to the president and reproductive health rights.

Just 13 percent of the voters polled in the 3rd District said they would support Singer. But he said those numbers are not reflective of “the kind of responses that I’ve been getting talking to people” in the field.

He believes a number of competitive ballot initiatives, a national desire to flip Congress blue and a distaste in Utah for President Donald Trump among both conservatives and liberals may work in his favor to bring people to the polls.

“I’m more concerned with making sure we have a good get-out-the-vote campaign,” he said. “So this kind of poll doesn’t take that into account. I’m curious to see how it will turn out in the end and if it ends up being how the polls say, well, that’s where the cards will fall, and that’s fine.”

(Scott Sommerdorf   |  The Salt Lake Tribune)   James Singer speaks at the rally entitled "#SummerResistance Day of Action: Protecting DACA," put on by the Utah State Democratic Party and Utah State Democratic Hispanic Caucus at the Centro Civico Mexicano, Sunday, August 20, 2017.
(Scott Sommerdorf | The Salt Lake Tribune) James Singer speaks at the rally entitled "#SummerResistance Day of Action: Protecting DACA," put on by the Utah State Democratic Party and Utah State Democratic Hispanic Caucus at the Centro Civico Mexicano, Sunday, August 20, 2017. (Scott Sommerdorf/)

Singer raised concerns about the accuracy of polls, pointing to numbers in the 2016 presidential election that incorrectly projected Hillary Clinton would win and, more recently, predicted socialist New York congressional candidate Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez would lose to the incumbent.

Even so, Perry said he doesn’t predict there will be a blue upset in this reliably red district.

“The reality is having 67 percent of the voters say they would vote for [Curtis] today shows he has really hit his stride,” Perry said. “He’s tackled some of the very difficult issues head-on and he even has four significant pieces of legislation going in Congress. I think people right now that are getting to know him seem to be happy with what he’s doing.”

‘Conservative Utah values’ in 1st District

Some candidates may see a 32-point lead from an incumbent candidate as insurmountable — but not Lee Castillo, the Democrat running against Bishop in the 1st District. Some 20 percent of the voters surveyed said they plan to throw their support behind him, and Castillo said “that excites the heck” out of him.

Like Singer, Castillo predicts that a wave of previously unregistered or disenfranchised voters will come out to the polls in November to throw their support behind him.

“We’re going to win,” he said. “I’m excited. Those numbers are… it’s a good outlook. We have people coming out that haven’t voted in so long because they’re inspired by our campaign.”

(Rick Egan  |  The Salt Lake Tribune)     Lee Castillo answers questions during the1st congressional district Democratic debate between Lee Castillo and Kurt Weiland at KBYU studios in Provo, Tuesday, May 29, 2018.
(Rick Egan | The Salt Lake Tribune) Lee Castillo answers questions during the1st congressional district Democratic debate between Lee Castillo and Kurt Weiland at KBYU studios in Provo, Tuesday, May 29, 2018. (Rick Egan/)

In an unexpected twist, United Utah Party candidate Eric Eliason qualified at the beginning of last month for the Utah Debate Commission’s 1st Congressional District debate with the support of 6.6 percent of the district’s voters. He was the only third-party candidate in any major race to make the commission’s cut.

The Tribune-Hinckley poll has Eliason positioned similarly, with the support of 10 percent of the district’s voters. The majority of those are Democrats or independents, which is consistent with the way the party — which formed last year — has polled so far, according to Perry.

“The United Utah Party is starting to have more consistent candidates,” he said, but noted “they will need some time to establish their brand.”

Eliason, a Logan businessman, said that his campaign had almost half its sizable budget still available for campaigning at the beginning of October and has “considerable dry powder left.”

“It’s great that we’re polling higher than any third party has polled before,” he said. “Every vote is a statement that we need more bipartisan government that puts country before party, and we think that’s a good thing.”

(Jeremy Harmon  |  The Salt Lake Tribune) Congressional candidate Eric Eliason meets with The Salt Lake Tribune editorial board on Wednesday, Oct. 3, 2018.
(Jeremy Harmon | The Salt Lake Tribune) Congressional candidate Eric Eliason meets with The Salt Lake Tribune editorial board on Wednesday, Oct. 3, 2018. (Rick Egan/)

Even facing two candidates who have earned enough support to stand in the debate, Bishop — chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee and an eight-term member of the House — is still best positioned for November’s election, Perry said.

“At this point, Rob Bishop is sitting with a 57 percent approval rating,” Perry said, with 28 percent expressing disapproval. “He’s a very well-known commodity, and 52 percent of Utahns said they would vote for him today. That is a considerable lead, and he is in a very good position.”

Bishop, who told The Deseret News last week that he has “no idea” how his re-election campaign is going, was traveling and was not available for comment. But his campaign manager, Kyle Palmer, said he was pleased with the results of The Tribune’s poll.

“Congressman Bishop is honored with the support that his constituents, once again in this poll, have shown him,” Palmer said in a message. “He is the only person in this race who shares their conservative Utah values and they recognize that.”

(Christopher Cherrington  |  The Salt Lake Tribune)
(Christopher Cherrington | The Salt Lake Tribune)
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