Wilson is a Democratic Salt Lake County Council member. Becker is the Democratic minority leader of the Utah House. Christensen is a former Salt Lake City councilman who recently changed his political affiliation from Republican to independent.

While wishing for support from a wide range of city voters, it's generally been the case that Buhler is appealing to Republican LDS voters, while Wilson and Becker are looking more toward liberal non-Mormons for support.

Across the state most voters are GOP Mormons, but that group is a minority inside Salt Lake City boundaries.

In the new survey, Jones asked voters' opinion of the candidates and whether they've even heard of the candidates' names.

Wilson, the daughter of former Salt Lake City Mayor Ted Wilson, was recognized by 92 percent of those polled, Jones found. Sixty-five percent had a favorable opinion of her.

Eighty-five percent had heard of Becker, with 57 percent holding a favorable opinion of the Capitol Hill/Avenues legislator.

Christensen was known to 91 percent of voters, with 55 percent holding a favorable opinion of him.

Buhler, who has been running some funny, quirky TV spots, was known by 94 percent of voters. But only half had a favorable opinion of him.

Retiring Mayor Rocky Anderson has been publicly slamming Buhler recently. And that may be one reason that Buhler has a 30 percent unfavorable rating, double or triple the unfavorable ratings of the other top three candidates.

The mayor's race is officially nonpartisan. That means the candidates' political party affiliations do not appear next to their name on the ballot.

But Salt Lake mayor candidates have run as a Democrat, Republican or independent for years.

And city residents clearly are recognizing the political affiliations this year.

Buhler gets 52 percent of the GOP vote, but 2 percent of the Democratic vote, Jones found.

Wilson gets 41 percent of the Democratic vote; Becker gets 39 percent.

Christensen hoped to get a large slice of the independent vote. But Jones found he gets only 14 percent of that bloc, the rest going to Wilson (28 percent), Buhler (22 percent) and Becker (18 percent).

Buhler, the only active Mormon in the top group of candidates, also gets 45 percent of the LDS vote, Jones found. Wilson gets 16 percent of the LDS vote, Christensen 14 percent and Becker gets 10 percent.

Finally, Jones believes that interest in the mayor's race has increased in the last several weeks. He now predicts a primary voter turnout of around 30 percent, higher than he believed earlier this summer.

Through years of polling, including exit polls outside of voting places, Jones has found that a person's interest in the election is a good indicator of who will actually go to the ballot box.

Among those who said they have a "high" interest in the race, Buhler leads with 28 percent support; Wilson has 26 percent; with Becker coming in with 23 percent. Christensen has 11 percent support among those highly interested in the contest. Again, the three leaders are all within the poll's margin of error.

"This primary comes down to a ground war," Jones said. "Who will get their voters to turn out? The (candidate) who finishes third place and out" of the final pairing "could lose by 100 votes or less — that's how close it could be."

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E-mail: bbjr@desnews.com