Second, as Huntsman draws more Republicans to his governor race, those conservatives are also falling away from Rep. Matheson. The new poll shows that Rep. Matheson is getting 21 percent of the Republican vote in the 2nd District, while brother Scott is getting just 13 percent of the GOP vote statewide.

A September poll showed Jim Matheson with 30 percent of the GOP vote in the 2nd District.

More results

In other contests:

• Sen. Bob Bennett, R-Utah, has a 43-point lead over Democrat Paul Van Dam. Van Dam won the Utah attorney general's race in 1988, but his candidacy this year has not caught on.

• Rep. Rob Bishop, R-Utah, holds a 43-point lead over Logan City Council chairman Steve Thompson, the Democrat in the race.

• Rep. Chris Cannon, R-Utah, has a 30-point lead over Democrat Beau Babka, a South Salt Lake police captain.

• Current Attorney General Mark Shurtleff, a Republican, holds a 42-point lead over Democratic challenger Greg Skordas.

• Amendment 3, which would change the Utah Constitution to ban same-sex marriages, is favored by 63 percent of Utahns, Jones found. Only a third oppose it.

• Initiative 1, which would increase the statewide sales tax by 1/20th of 1 percent to raise money for open space preservation, is way ahead in Jones' survey. The proposal is ahead 58-35 percent.

• And in Salt Lake County, reauthorization of the current zoos-arts-and-parks (ZAP) sales tax is very popular, with 72 percent for and only 22 percent against renewing the tax.

Exit polling

Finally, Jones will be conducting exit polls Tuesday night for KSL-TV. The surveys are used to help predict, after the polls close at 8 p.m., who may win various races and which ballot propositions may pass.

This election marks the first time that Utahns could cast early absentee ballots at their will, no longer having to certify that they will be out of their voting precincts Election Day.

Across the nation, more and more citizens are casting early ballots, leading to questions about the accuracy of Election Day exit polling.

Jones said, by and large, the political preferences of early voters are the same as Election Day voters. So early voting shouldn't have much impact on exit polling's accuracy.

However, in Salt Lake County, thousands of absentee ballots were cast while Ivory was only a write-in candidate, his name not then on the ballot itself. But any write-in ballots cast for Ivory early will be counted for him, county clerk officials say.

"Early voting is tough (on exit polling), when issues surface in the last three or four days before Election Day," said Jones. "Especially on initiatives and amendments. You really need 60 percent in (pre-election polls) to pass, because those who don't know much about initiatives vote no at the ballot box."

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E-mail: bbjr@desnews.com