The recent Salt Lake County government scandals that have damaged Mayor Nancy Workman in the polls have had little impact in another prominent county race.
According to a KSL-TV/Deseret Morning News poll conducted last week by Dan Jones & Associates, GOP County Council Chairman Steve Harmsen is holding steady against Democratic challenger Jenny Wilson.
In a May poll, 34 percent of respondents said they would vote for Harmsen, with 30 percent supporting Wilson and 31 percent undecided (third-party candidates garnered a few percentage points). Now, two months later, 36 percent of respondents say they would vote for Harmsen, with 30 percent for Wilson and 31 percent undecided.
The last two figures are identical to the numbers in May, and Harmsen's numbers are well within the margin of error of both polls.
"Not much change," Wilson said.
Of all the candidates for Salt Lake County Council, Wilson has been the most visible — calling press conferences, attending functions, glad-handing influential people and the press. She has a billboard on I-15 in Salt Lake County displaying her picture and touting her "legacy of leadership." This is her first political race, but Wilson has been around politics much of her life, in part because her father is former Salt Lake City mayor Ted Wilson.
Incumbent Harmsen is a political veteran, serving as a Salt Lake County commissioner and running for various races over the years.
Wilson said she was encouraged by the poll results because only 19 percent of respondents identified themselves as Democrats.
"I'm going way beyond the Democratic base," she said.
For his part, Harmsen has maintained that "any kind of polling between now and October is pretty much conjecture."
Neither Harmsen nor any member of the council has been directly involved in either the "guzzle-gate" scandal or the most recent controversy involving District Attorney David Yocom's investigation into Workman's hiring of two temporary employees.
Nevertheless, Harmsen and Wilson have not hesitated to jump into the fray — Harmsen in a Republican leaders' press conference condemning Yocom's motives as purely political and Wilson in press conferences of her own saying Workman needs at the least to be more attentive to detail.
Several Democratic leaders say they hope to get a Democratic majority on the council through this year's elections. The nine-member council currently has three Democrats, none of whom are up for re-election, while three seats held by Republicans are up for grabs
E-mail: aedwards@desnews.com.