Wilson, whose father, Ted, was mayor in the late 1970s and early 1980s, holds a Democratic Salt Lake County Council seat. She gets 31 percent of the Democratic vote, and just 10 percent of the GOP vote, Jones found.

Utah House Minority Leader Ralph Becker, D-Salt Lake, gets 9 percent support citywide. He gets 15 percent of the Democratic vote.

But being identified as a Democrat doesn't always result in support. Meghan Holbrook served as state Democratic chairwoman from 1997 to 2003. But Jones found she gets only 2 percent support citywide and only 2 percent support among Democrats.

Salt Lake City Councilwoman Nancy Saxton gets 5 percent support citywide but only 4 percent of the Democratic vote, even though Saxton, too, is a Democrat.

Jones' poll finds that 26 percent of citizens say they are Republicans; 32 percent say they are political independents; and 36 percent said they are Democrats. Another 4 percent identified their party as "other" while 2 percent declined to answer.

Accordingly, the winning candidate clearly has to take a healthy share of the independent vote.

Buhler gets 14 percent of the independent vote; but Wilson tallies 17 percent. Again, like the Democrats and the Republicans, many independents are undecided.

There has been talk of making the Salt Lake mayor's race a partisan office — with candidates running under political party banners. But residents don't want that. Jones found that 69 percent said it should remain a nonpartisan office; only a fourth said mayors should be elected by party.

Finally, Anderson won his two mayoral elections by appealing to non-Republican, non-LDS voters. In return, the mayor has not fared well among Mormon GOP city dwellers, who consistently give him low marks in his job approval ratings.

The demographic split among city residents has been decried by a number of mayoral candidates this year, with candidates saying they are the ones who can bring the city together again.

Yet super-majorities of city residents say that a candidate's political party and a candidate's religion plays either a "large part" or "some part" in the candidate getting elected.

Jones found that 76 percent — three out of four — said that a candidate's political party plays a role in his election, and 63 percent said a candidate's religion plays a role in his election.

However, when residents are asked if a candidate's political party or religion plays a role in how that individual voter casts his mayoral ballot, the importance drops.

For example, Jones found 54 percent of city residents said a candidate's political party will have either a "great deal" or "some" impact on their vote.

Only 36 percent said that a candidate's religion has an impact on how they personally select their vote for mayor.

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E-mail: bbjr@desnews.com