Salt Lake County Council candidate Jenny Wilson is closing the gap between Republican incumbent Steve Harmsen after several months of widening disparity, a new poll has found.

In a Deseret Morning News/KSL-TV poll conducted last week by Dan Jones & Associates, 39 percent of respondents said they would vote for Harmsen and another 31 percent favored Democratic candidate Wilson. Twenty-seven percent of the 387 registered voters polled countywide said they were still undecided.

While the numbers show a 1 percentage point drop for Wilson since a September poll, Wilson said she was pleased to see the race was getting tighter as Harmsen dropped 4 percentage points from his 43 percent support last month.

The survey has a margin of error of plus or minus 5 percent for the council's "at large" seat.

"In my gut I believe it's much closer than these numbers show," Wilson said. "It's a neck-and-neck race."

Harmsen, however, said he is not worried about the narrowing gap because his decrease falls within the poll's margin of error. He added that his numbers may be suffering from the political fallout of Salt Lake County Mayor Nancy Workman.

Wilson is capitalizing on the controversy in a campaign calling for a systemwide change in Salt Lake County. She is using billboards throughout the county to get the message out that "Jenny Wilson will give Salt Lake County an extreme makeover."

Wilson remains confident she will be able to close the remaining gap by the Nov. 2 election because she said voters want a change and are realizing she is the candidate to bring it.

"It's not enough to just elect a new mayor. We need to have change throughout," Wilson said. "If we have change in the council, we can enter a new day in Salt Lake County."

Harmsen, however, said he's hoping voters are able to distinguish between the mayor and the city council. He did acknowledge that what would be advantages — being Republican and an incumbent — could now be strikes against him in light of Workman's upcoming criminal trial for misuse of public funds and the residual effect of the county's travel reimbursement and gasoline use scandals.

"I haven't detected whether there is any 'throw the bums out' kind of mentality," he said. "I hope people see that all of humanity isn't judged by the acts of a few people."

While poll results show the voter support gap narrowing in voter support, the difference in financial backing between the candidates is increasing. Wilson said she expects to have more than 1,000 donations by Nov. 2 and had nearly $80,000 in campaign contributions in September. Harmsen had only accrued about $15,000 by last month.

Wilson attributes her healthy finances to a focused campaign and the support of people who want to invest in her leadership. For Harmsen, garnering large pots of campaign funds is a matter of preference that he said won't make much of a difference in the election.

"That's just not part of my personality," he said. "I don't like raising money so I don't go out and shake people down."

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E-mail: estewart@desnews.com