48% say replace Hatch, but he isn't worried

Democrat Ashdown says he sees an opportunity

U.S. Sen. Orrin Hatch wants a sixth six-year term in the Senate next year, and while Hatch is clearly a strong incumbent, a new poll shows that only 45 percent of Utahns today want him re-elected, while 48 percent say it's time to pick someone new.

The question put by pollster Dan Jones & Associates for the Deseret Morning News and KSL-TV is known as a "naked re-elect" because there are no opposing candidates listed.

Jones asked 400 adults: "Sen. Orrin Hatch, a Republican, is running for a sixth term in the U.S. Senate. Do you believe Hatch should be re-elected to the Senate, or is it time to give someone new a chance to serve?"

Historically, such polls of popular Utah politicians find that more than 50 percent of their constituents want them to be re-elected.

In a 1998 poll on former Gov. Mike Leavitt, asking if the then-governor should win a third term in 2000, 64 percent said Leavitt should be re-elected.

Hatch's 45 percent "naked re-elect" number "is a surprise and shows we have a real opportunity here," said Utah Democratic Party Leader Wayne Holland.

The poll's numbers "are indicative of my feeling that Sen. Hatch has done a respectable job for Utah, but it's time for a change," said Pete Ashdown, a Democratic high-tech business owner who is already operating a Senate campaign challenging Hatch.

Nonsense, said Dave Hansen, Hatch's campaign manager.

"We feel comfortable with these (poll) numbers," said Hansen, who has run major GOP campaigns both inside and outside of Utah.

This poll question's results, combined with what Hansen termed as Hatch's favorable job approval ratings — 67 percent of Utahns approve of the job Hatch is doing, a story in Wednesday's Morning News showed — do not bode ill. "We see no problems with them," he said.

In 1992, the newspaper and Jones conducted a "naked re-elect" on Hatch two years out from his 1994 campaign. It showed that 47 percent of Utahns favored Hatch's re-election, while 46 percent said the GOP and voters should pick someone new.

Hatch went on to handily beat Democratic challenger Pat Shea 71-29 percent in 1994. "I'll gladly take those election results" in 2006, Hansen said.

But Holland and Ashdown say times have changed — and that Hatch has not changed with them.

Said Holland: "I'm hearing from all kinds of people, even the corporate executives that I know quite well, and who have favored (Hatch) in the past, that he's lost touch. He's too much a D.C. insider. You know, Sen. Hatch has preached for years the anti-Washington (sermon). But now he's part of the problem, not part of any solutions."

Ashdown, who is CEO and chairman of Utah-based XMission, an Internet service provider, said Hatch "has done a good job in (what Utahns wanted ) over the last 50 years." (Hatch has actually served 28 years in the Senate.)

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