SALT LAKE CITY — Davis County GOP Chairman Rob Anderson could end up supporting Donald Trump for president depending on how the controversial front-runner performs in the first Republican debate Thursday.
Anderson is one of several Utahns traveling to Cleveland to see the matchup between 10 of the 17 Republican candidates chosen by Fox News for the debate based on their standings in the polls.
The airline pilot called Trump refreshing "despite the fact his rhetoric is raw and sometimes viewed as anti-social" and said he looks forward to seeing the political outsider take on the rest of the GOP field.
"He's a fish out of water, according to him, in this debate. I would like to see him swim strongly and not flounder," Anderson said.
Most Utahns, though, don't see the same potential in Trump, he said.
"He's got an uphill battle to climb to win the hearts and minds of Utahns," Anderson said. And even he suggested Trump is going to have "to rein in his rhetoric and be a serious candidate" to remain a contender.
But Anderson compared the strengths of the billionaire known for his bluster to the party's 2012 nominee, Mitt Romney, one of Utah's most popular politicians.
"The Trump effect, if you want to call it that, is he's a businessman who has had to be successful," Anderson said. "I think that Utah, probably as much as any state in the last election, was all about Romney being a businessman and being able to straighten out the mess in Washington."
Utah GOP Chairman James Evans, who'll be in Cleveland to attend Republican National Committee meetings, suggested Trump isn't helping the party win back the White House.
"I think Donald Trump is giving voice to an element of the Republican electorate who are just fed up with a national government in Washington, D.C., that doesn't seem to put America first," Evans said.
While that's boosting Trump's profile, Evans said "if it continues and the party is just seen as angry, it will hurt the party in the long term."
More troubling to Evans, though, is the sheer number of GOP presidential candidates.
"I'm just concerned that we have 17 candidates," the state party chairman said. "They can end up appearing like a circus. And what we should be focused on is getting a candidate that can win the national election."
What he'd like to see is some candidates get out of the race, including former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee and former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum. Huckabee polled high enough to qualify for Thursday's debate but Santorum didn't.
"If they exercised a little bit of political discipline, they wouldn't even be running," Evans said. "They should ask themselves if they are doing more harm than good."
So far, Utah Republicans haven't shown much interest in any particular candidate, he said, aside from retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson, who'll have a booth at the state party's convention later this month.
Beth Powers of Magna said money for the booth came from the 2016 Committee, a super PAC supporting Carson. Powers said she backs Carson because "he's a regular American. He's not a politician" and is religious.
She dismissed Trump as a "womanizer. He's just a Republican Bill Clinton" and said his front-runner status won't last because he's "just a fad." Powers said she expects the debate to help voters "weed out" some of the candidates.
University of Utah political science professor Matthew Burbank said 2016 is going to be a tough year for Utah voters, especially Republicans who dominate the state and have seen their favorite son candidate fail in the past two presidential elections.
"That last couple of times, when Romney was in the race, it was easy. For most Utahns, he was the natural choice," Burbank said. "This time around, a lot of people are claiming they are the true conservative in the race, but because there's so many, it's going to be difficult to sort out."
For Evans, who attempted to launch a "Draft Mitt" movement before the two-time presidential candidate decided earlier this year not to make a third run, the choice is still clear.
"You know who my favorite is, Mitt Romney. I'm not backing off that," Evans said. "I'm still Mitt Romney, Team Mitt."
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