Race for Salt Lake mayor appears wide open

The 10 declared candidates for mayor of Salt Lake City, Utah's most populous community, have their work cut out for them, a new Deseret Morning News/KSL-TV poll shows.

But Salt Lake County Councilwoman Jenny Wilson holds a clear early lead, the new survey of Salt Lake City residents by Dan Jones & Associates shows.

Mayor Rocky Anderson is not seeking a third term this year and will retire, leaving an open field.

Jones found that Wilson is favored by 20 percent of adults in the city. But 44 percent said they did not know who they would vote for this year for mayor.

Jones then "pushed" that 44 percent to pick a candidate, and Wilson picked up another 5 percent support — the most of any of the candidates. So Wilson starts the real campaign season with nearly a quarter of residents favoring her candidacy.

But there is still a lot of room for the other candidates to catch up. The primary is not until September, with the final election between the two top vote-getters coming in November.

Of the city's past five mayors, four did not have experience inside City Hall before their election, while they may have held elective or appointive government offices outside of the city.

But 64 percent of city residents told Jones that they feel City Hall experience is either "very" or "somewhat" important in the next mayor. A third said such experience is not needed.

And experience is what each of the candidates are now touting as they appear two-by-two before the University of Utah's Hinckley Institute of Politics in early debates this spring.

The Salt Lake City mayoral race is officially nonpartisan. That means the candidates' political party is not listed next to their names on ballots and political parties play no official role in nominating candidates.

Still, historically, candidates have publicly associated with a political party. And not since former mayor Jake Garn was elected in 1971 have city residents picked a Republican for mayor. Garn subsequently served as a U.S. senator.

This year candidates who are Democrats are letting that be known, while GOP mayoral candidates are playing down their party affiliations. Still, residents likely know where a few of the candidates come from.

For example, Salt Lake City Councilman Dave Buhler was once a GOP state senator. Buhler gets 12 percent support citywide in the new poll. But he gets 25 percent of the GOP vote, Jones found, and only 1 percent of the Democratic vote.