Democrat Jim Matheson holds an 11 percentage point lead over Republican Derek Smith in the 2nd Congressional District as the 2000 election races to a close Tuesday, a new Deseret News/KSL-TV poll shows.
But the Republican incumbents seem safe in other top contests, pollster Dan Jones & Associates found in a survey of registered voters completed Friday.
And while Texas Gov. George W. Bush and Vice President Al Gore are in neck-to-neck races in a dozen states, Bush has no worries here in Utah, where he holds a 35 percentage point lead.
GOP Sen. Orrin Hatch has a 36-point lead over Democratic challenger Scott Howell.
U.S. Rep. Jim Hansen, R-Utah, holds a 41-point lead over Democrat Kathleen McConkie Collinwood in the 1st Congressional District.
Rep. Chris Cannon has an 18-point lead over Democrat Donald Dunn in the 3rd District.
Two-term Republican Gov. Mike Leavitt is maintaining his lead over Democrat Bill Orton, ahead by 16 percentage points in this latest poll.
In the state attorney general race, GOP candidate Mark Shurtleff has widened his lead to 9 points over Democrat Reed Richards, with 19 percent undecided. The October poll showed only a two-point difference between the two.
The 2nd District is one of perhaps two dozen House contests across the nation that could determine who controls the 435-member U.S. House over the next two years.
In the last two surveys for the newspaper and TV station — taken in September and October — Smith was steadily closing on Matheson. Two months ago, Matheson led by 14 points; in October just 10 points.
But that momentum has stalled, the new poll shows. Matheson holds about the same lead he did four weeks ago, Jones found.
Among registered voters who said they were very likely to vote Tuesday, Smith improves. Jones found the race 45-to-40 percent for Matheson among them.
Jones, who has polled in Utah for 25 years, says a number of those interviewed by telephone over the last eight days said they found the negative ads in the 2nd District offensive.
In a KUER radio debate Thursday night, Smith was lectured by two citizens on the station's panel, both saying they are Republicans who are upset over the tone of the campaign against Democrat Matheson.
Most of those TV and radio anti-Matheson ads were paid for by groups outside of Utah; so-called "soft money, issue ads" that paint the Democrat in a poor light. More than $1 million has been spent on the outside ads, setting a record for a federal race in Utah.
Despite the heavy TV ad buys that try to tie Matheson to national Democrats and their policies, Jones found that Smith still has considerable trouble with support among Republicans, independents and conservatives.
Twenty-three percent of Republicans said they favor Matheson. Fifteen percent of those who said they are "very conservative" favor Matheson, while he gets 41 percent support among those who said they are "somewhat conservative."
The 2nd District has more independents than the other two Utah congressional districts. And Matheson gets 54 percent of the independent vote, compared with Smith's 24 percent.
While the 2nd District historically votes slightly Republican, it will be difficult for Smith to win Tuesday if he doesn't draw more GOP and independent support.
Smith is using a two-prong approach to the problem. Last week, he brought in maverick GOP Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., to endorse him and bolster his standing with independent-minded Republicans. And his ads are saying a vote for Matheson could put the Democrats in control of the U.S. House, a call for Republicans to come home. However, the poll shows he isn't making much headway in those areas.
The new poll also reflects what some local political pundits have been saying for weeks: Leavitt and Cannon should be running better than they are.
While the two incumbents are likely safe for re-election, Leavitt seems not to have recovered from when he was booed in the state GOP convention last spring and then forced into a primary with an unknown Republican newcomer. He clearly will fall short of the record-setting 75 percent majority he won in 1996.
The Utah right wing is clearly angry at the governor. Jones found that Orton, a conservative Democrat during his six years in the U.S. House from the 3rd District, gets 19 percent of the "very conservative" vote and 26 percent of the "somewhat conservative" vote.
Cannon has not run an aggressive campaign this year. Dunn out-raised him in money and has had rather quirky TV ads on for several weeks. The race is highly partisan, Jones found. Cannon gets only 1 percent of the Democratic vote, Dunn only 10 percent of the Republican vote.
The men split independent voters — 38 percent for Cannon, 35 percent for Dunn. The district is heavily Republican, so Dunn has little chance of victory if he doesn't pull a huge majority of independent voters and a healthy share of Republicans.
Jones estimates that around 70 percent of registered voters will cast ballots Tuesday. That's a healthy turnout for Utahns. Only 66 percent of registered voters voted in 1996, the last presidential year.
E-mail: bbjr@desnews.com