Surgeon takes delight in S.L. mayoral race

Editor's note: The Deseret Morning News is running a series of profiles of announced candidates for Salt Lake City mayor. The newspaper continues that series today.

For someone who spends his days working with diseased colons, Jay Preston Hughes is an upbeat guy.

In the midst of his long-shot mayoral campaign, Hughes, 65, a colorectal surgeon who goes by J.P., regularly exclaims, "Can you believe this? Isn't this wonderful?"

He utters that comment whether discussing the turnout at his historic West Temple home for a campaign event, the view of the city from the balcony at that home or his nervousness before a candidate forum. When he's talking about the things he loves — his family, his home, his medical practice, Salt Lake City — it's with the zeal of someone who can't believe how lucky he is.

He's reveling in the fun he's having on the campaign trail, even as the most recent financial disclosures and poll results show him near the bottom of the pack. Only Meghan Holbrook, who has dropped out of the race, and John Renteria, who hadn't reported raising any money, had raised less. Three other candidates — Rainer Huck, Quinn Cady McDonough and Robert Muscheck — had not entered the race at that point.

Earlier this month, a Dan Jones & Associates poll of 400 Salt Lake residents who said they were likely to vote showed Hughes pulling in only 2 percent of the respondents' support among the mayoral candidates.

Even when he addresses his underdog status, he jokes and colors it with some optimism.

"I really think I have a good chance, in a weird sort of way," he says. "You have to think you're going to win, but you don't want to be phony about it."

Hughes is a registered Republican and a bishop at a University of Utah singles ward of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in a city that hasn't elected a GOP mayor since Jake Garn in 1971 or an LDS mayor since Ted Wilson in 1975.

But Hughes dismisses the role of his partisan and religious identification in the campaign — and caps it off with a joke.

"I'm more of an independent guy," he says. "I really don't carry the water of the Republican Party. Why do I have to get beat up? And it's nonpartisan. It shouldn't even matter. Should I just tell them I'm a Democrat? Would that help? 'Listen to me. I'm a Democrat.'"

Although his life's work has been in medicine, this is not his first foray into politics. He touts his political experience, and he always starts with a list from his formative years: junior high school student council, senior class president in high school, governor of Boys State.