2nd District race gets little GOP money

Today is the deadline for outside political action committees or other groups to run TV or radio ads in congressional races.

And unlike 2002 and 2004, we have not seen negative ads in Utah.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has been running pro-Rep. Jim Matheson ads for weeks. But there's been no Matheson-bashing broadcast ads against the three-term Democrat.

We saw a number of those in campaigns past, historically taken out by the conservative Club for Growth and the National Republican Congressional Committee.

The NRCC is the national Republican Party's arm that raises and spends millions of dollars to help Republicans get elected to the U.S. House.

Both groups have run some pretty hard-hitting anti-Matheson ads in the past. So what does it say that the club and NRCC have, so far, stayed out of the 2nd Congressional District race?

First off, Republicans are in danger of losing their majority in the U.S. House. Top priority for party and conservative groups is to shore up vulnerable GOP incumbents.

Various Congress-watching groups say upwards of 17 to 20 Republican incumbents are in danger of losing in November. Since Republicans hold a majority by a slim 15-seat majority out of 435 members, financial help needs to go to those incumbents.

Secondly, while Matheson has been seen as ripe for the Republican picking in 2002 and 2004 (after the Republican-controlled Utah Legislature redrew his 2nd District to make it more Republican), he is much stronger this year.

The Republicans' nominee is state Rep. LaVar Christensen, a conservative from Draper. A mid-July poll for the Deseret Morning News and KSL-TV found that Matheson leads Christensen 64-23 percent. That's the largest early campaign lead Matheson has ever enjoyed.

And no one — especially the supposedly savvy groups like the Club for Growth and the NRCC — wants to be seen as a political sucker. They may see large contributions to Christensen as a waste.

But Christensen is running a hard campaign — he already has TV ads on broadcast and cable channels. Certainly, the race will tighten. After all, the 2nd District in non-Matheson races usually votes Republican, sometimes even heavily Republican.

Matheson has become a true Utah political anomaly. There are likely thousands of 2nd District voters who can't remember the last time they ever voted for a Democrat. Yet they vote for Matheson.

Another recent newspaper poll found Matheson more popular among his constituents than either Reps. Rob Bishop or Chris Cannon, both R-Utah, are among their own voters.

Christensen's challenge is to paint Matheson as a national Democrat. Under that mind-set, Christensen has a chance. But, of course, that's the same strategy that past 2nd District Republicans have tried. And it didn't work.

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