Utah incumbents are on track

They hold double-digit leads over their challengers

While a number of congressional incumbents across the nation are struggling in their re-election bids, in Utah incumbents are holding healthy double-digit leads as they head into Tuesday's vote, a new survey for the Deseret Morning News and KSL-TV shows.

Dan Jones & Associates polled registered voters on how they felt about the U.S. Senate and three U.S. House races. Results:

• Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, holds a 34-percentage-point lead over his major party challenger.

• Rep. Jim Matheson, D-Utah, holds a 37-percentage-point lead.

• Rep. Chris Cannon, R-Utah, holds a 29-percentage-point lead.

• Rep. Rob Bishop, R-Utah, holds a 24-percentage-point lead.

By historical standards, these are huge leads for any high-profile candidate just before the election.

Jones, who has polled in Utah for 30 years, warns this new survey's results do not predict the actual vote on Tuesday but are accurate up through Thursday when he finished talking to registered voters.

But there's little chance that any of these incumbents will be beaten this year, although the actual vote in each race could be closer than Jones' survey indicates. The poll of 1,233 registered voters is accurate within plus-or-minus 2.8 percent in the statewide Senate race, within plus-or-minus 4.9 percent in each of the three congressional districts.

The survey's most striking results are in Matheson's 2nd District. In the poll, he leads state Rep. LaVar Christensen, R-Draper, by 63-26 percent. That's more than a 2-to-1 margin.

And that's a big change from the 2002 election, in which Matheson squeaked out re-election by less than 1 percentage point over Republican challenger John Swallow.

Considering that the 2nd District voted heavily for GOP President Bush in 2004 and usually leans Republican in other races, Democrat Matheson's popularity is perplexing to GOP state leaders who've been trying to unseat him since his first win in 2000.

Campaign spending does not seem to be the answer; Matheson's opponents have run healthy campaigns.

Thursday, Christensen gave his campaign another $50,000. That put him over the so-called "millionaire's exemption" in personal donations to a campaign under Federal Election Commission law, requiring new reporting disclosures.

So far, Christensen — an attorney who is worth more than $5 million through his subdivision developments — has given his campaign just over $540,000. Christensen had spent more than $500,000 as of several weeks ago.

Matheson, a consistently outstanding money-raiser by Utah standards, has raised more than $1.7 million to finance his campaign, spending more than $1.2 million.

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