Anderson still out in front of pack

Re-election support for Salt Lake Mayor Rocky Anderson has dropped a bit since last spring, while support for his main rivals — Frank Pignanelli and Molonai Hola — is growing, a new Deseret Morning News/KSL-TV poll shows.

Still, Anderson holds a healthy lead over the rest of the mayoral field with the city primary now just six weeks away, pollster Dan Jones & Associates found in a survey conducted this past week for the newspaper and TV station.

If the primary election were today, 41 percent would vote for Anderson, 27 percent for Pignanelli and 17 percent for Hola, Jones found in the new poll.

In April, Jones found that 49 percent of city residents favored Anderson, who seeks a second four-year term. At that time, 20 percent liked Pignanelli and only 7 percent favored Hola, who seeks his first elective office.

A few more months of campaigning has closed the race.

Instead of a 29-percentage-point lead over Pignanelli, Anderson now holds a 14-point lead. And Hola has jumped from 7-percent support to 17 percent, Jones found.

In his new poll Jones surveyed those who said they were probably going to vote in the Oct. 7 primary. The head-to-head matchup has an error factor of plus-or-minus 5.3 percent.

The new survey also shows that, as before, by and large city residents either like Anderson or they don't. You don't find a lot of fence-sitters where the mayor is concerned.

Both Anderson and Pignanelli are Democrats. Hola is a Republican. The race is officially nonpartisan — no political party designations accompany candidates' names on the ballot. But Salt Lake City has not elected a Republican mayor in nearly 30 years.

Political winds

Anderson has been buffeted by several ill political winds this spring, which may have driven away some soft support. Also, in recent weeks Pignanelli has increased his criticism of the mayor.

Web extra Poll details by age, gender, political party, etc. April poll Campaign web sites Rocky Anderson Frank Pignanelli Molonai Hola