SALT LAKE CITY — Salt Lake City Councilwoman Erin Mendenhall has a slight lead over Sen. Luz Escamilla in the race to become Salt Lake’s next mayor, according to a new poll of likely voters released Wednesday.
But the poll also shows a big chunk of undecided voters.
Mendenhall has the support of 42% of poll respondents ahead of Escamilla’s 37%, with 21% undecided, according to the poll commissioned by the Salt Lake Chamber and conducted by Dan Jones & Associates, a subsidiary of the Cicero Group. The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points.
Candidates and campaign staff warn, however, that the poll doesn’t reflect what they’re seeing in their campaign efforts and urge voters to take the poll results with a grain of salt — especially after polls prior to the August primary weren’t reflective of what actually happened on election night.
“It’s interesting, but we’re not putting too much stock into it,” Mendenhall told the Deseret News on Wednesday. “It’s not reflective of what we’re seeing in the field. It’s going to be a very close race. So we are running like we’re 10 points down and fighting for every single vote every single day.”
Rudy Miera, Escamilla’s campaign manager, said Escamilla is seeing a “surge” in support in recent days, after the survey’s polling period.
“With 21% undecided, we feel good about our ability to win those undecideds,” Miera said said. “Looking at the dailies on that seven-day poll, which was a few weeks ago, the momentum changed toward the end. Had they kept polling, we feel confident it would reflect what we’re seeing on the ground, which is a surge of support.”
The poll was conducted from Oct. 3 to Oct. 10 as part of a statewide poll regarding Utah’s 2020 governor’s race. Pollsters oversampled in Salt Lake City to gather “statistically valid results” for the mayor’s race, according to the poll.
The question was posed to 350 respondents who confirmed they were Salt Lake City residents, according to Blake Moore, a principal at Cicero Group.
The poll was conducted the week before ballots began hitting voter mailboxes, and before Mendenhall and Escamilla debated on live TV in KSL-TV studios earlier this week, when they clashed over their records related to the Utah Inland Port Authority, which has become the testiest subject in the race thus far.
“That’s a tight race. It will be very interesting to see what happens.” — Blake Moore, a principal at Cicero Group
A previous Salt Lake Chamber-commissioned poll before the primary showed former state Sen. Jim Dabakis as a front-runner, trailed by Escamilla and Mendenhall in third place. On election night, Mendenhall took a surprise lead, and while Dabakis initially hung on to the second-place slot, he lost it to Escamilla when more ballots were counted days later. That poll was criticized by some candidates for returning a small sample size, of only 149 likely Salt Lake City voters, and a large margin of error of plus or minus 8 percentage points.
Moore said polling for the general election is more straightforward with only two choices instead of the eight-candidate primary field, but he noted the “significant number” of undecided voters will be crucial as the race draws closer to Election Day Nov. 5.
“That’s a tight race,” Moore said. “It will be very interesting to see what happens.”