From Deseret News archives:
Prediction: big year for GOP in Utah (again)
Well, maybe it's over.
Maybe we'll still be counting ballots for Salt Lake County mayor for a week, counting ballots for president across the nation for months. But at least Tuesday is Election Day 2004.
Historically, I use my column right before an election to make some predictions.
These ARE ONLY PREDICTIONS! It's my guess who will win. I could be wrong (although I've been more right than wrong over the past 20 years).
So, here it goes:
President: President Bush wins in Utah.
I know betting is illegal in Utah, but if it were legal and any casino was crazy enough to even give you odds, this is the one sure thing in this election. In 2000, Utahns gave Bush his greatest majority. It may well do so again. Sen. John Kerry has no chance here.
And neither Bush nor Kerry came to Utah this year. We were totally ignored. Maybe this will lead Utahns to support changing the U.S. Constitution to dump the Electoral College, a much-needed reform.
Governor: Republican Jon Huntsman Jr. wins. It may not be a landslide. But I think he gets a healthy majority.
You may not remember, but former Gov. Mike Leavitt — who was popular among the state's residents — only got 42 percent of the vote in his first election in 1992 in a three-way race.
I don't know if Utahns really know Huntsman. But he led the eight-person GOP field into the May Republican convention — which saw incumbent Gov. Olene Walker eliminated — won the June GOP primary handily and never looked back.
Scott Matheson Jr., the Democratic nominee, ran a thoughtful, cordial race. And if he doesn't get 40 percent of the vote or more, it's a sad thing — sad in part because it will tell future Democratic gubernatorial candidates that they have to run critical campaigns if they want to get closer.
No Democrat has won the governor's seat since Matheson's father, the late Gov. Scott M. Matheson , won a second term in 1980.
2nd Congressional District: I think Rep. Jim Matheson, a Democrat, pulls out another close victory. The rematch with Republican John Swallow was even more negative and bitter than in 2002, when Rep. Matheson won by less than 1 percentage point.
Should Swallow not win, he says he'll retire from politics for awhile. In any case, it's unlikely that Republicans would give him a third nomination to challenge Rep. Matheson in 2006.
If Swallow does pull it out at the last minute, Utah will again end up one of the most Republican states in the nation — all top offices going to Republicans.
Democrats haven't been down that low since the mid-1980s.
