"The voters don't know me yet," Swallow said. "Even some Republicans don't know me. The Matheson family has 100 percent name ID. A lot of people like him. He's a nice guy. But when people get to know me, know how we differ on the issues, how I line up with them on the issues, we'll be just fine. We are well positioned to win."

Thursday is the deadline for another round of federal campaign finance filings, and Matheson said his will show he has more than $1 million in cash.

"I'm $350,000 ahead of where I was at the same time" in 2002, he said. "I've broken all of my campaign fund-raising records and I'm just going to keep on going."

Swallow, who just spent around $550,000 in his primary win over fellow Republican Tim Bridgewater, said his report will show he has around $200,000 in cash.

"That's well ahead of where I was just following (the 2002) primary. I had only about $30,000 in cash then. We're doing better in the polls and much better in fund-raising than at this time" in 2002, Swallow said.

As was the case two years ago, Utah's 2nd District is targeted by the national parties and their supporters as a swing district, one of maybe 40 out of 435 U.S. House seats that can be won by a Democrat or Republican.

Bishop's 1st District and Cannon's 3rd District are generally believed secure seats for their GOP incumbents. Bennett's Senate seat is also considered safely in Republican hands.

New federal campaign finance laws say independent groups can't run TV and radio ads attacking a candidate 60 days before the election. And so Matheson said if some conservative groups come after him — like they did in the 2002 race — "then we'll be seeing those ads in July and August, pretty soon."

While he has more cash than ever before, Matheson declined to say if he'd respond to any such summer ads with his own TV or radio ad campaign.

"I'll just have to wait and see if they come and what they say," he said.

Utahns have not elected a Democrat to the U.S. Senate in 34 years, when the late Sen. Frank Moss won re-election in 1970.

And Bennett, who seeks a third six-year term, doesn't appear in much danger now, Jones' poll shows. He leads Van Dam 89-2 percent among Republicans. Van Dam, who left the AG's office in 1992, gets only 74 percent of his own party's Democratic vote, while Bennett leads him among independents, 46-28 percent.

The 3rd District actually has more voters in western Salt Lake County than in Utah County, the district's historic heart. Yet Babka doesn't carry his home county. Cannon leads 51-29 percent in the Salt Lake County part of the district and leads 59-17 percent in Utah County.

This is Bishop's first re-election. And it appears some voters don't know him or Thompson very well. Jones found 17 percent are undecided. But 84 percent of Republicans favor Bishop. Thompson gets only 62 percent support from fellow Democrats, while the pair split the independent vote with about one-third for each man and a third undecided.

---

E-mail: bbjr@desnews.com