From Deseret News archives:

2nd District mudslinging could trigger a backlash

Published: Friday, Oct. 29, 2004 9:00 a.m. MDT
 |  E-MAIL | PRINT | FONT + - 
At what point does a candidate actually become harmed by controversial advertising?

Are John Swallow and Jim Matheson being hurt by negative ad campaigns in Utah's 2nd Congressional District?

Utahns have, over the years, been less than receptive to tough, highly critical campaigning, says Dan Jones, who has polled in Utah for 30 years and teaches political science at the University of Utah.

The 2nd District race between Republican Swallow and incumbent Democratic Rep. Matheson is turning into one of the most negative in the state's history. Come Election Day, $4 million may have been spent by both candidates and their political parties, much of it in advertising criticizing the other guy.

It's generally assumed that Democrat Lily Eskelsen — an attractive, articulate candidate — was hurt in her 1998 effort to unseat then-GOP Rep. Merrill Cook when TV ads started running showing Cook with his hair all awry — criticizing him on a variety of fronts. Cook, who had had a checkered election career, coasted to a larger-than-expected victory.

Story continues below
"In my opinion, those ads cost Lily the race," said Jones, who that year was doing tracking polling for Cook. "I watched it daily. Before those ads hit, Lily was gaining" on Cook. "But not only did she stop" closing on Cook when the negative ads hit the airwaves, "she actually dropped," said Jones.

Now the Utah Republican Party, the National Republican Congressional Committee and Swallow's own campaign are mired in anti-Matheson ad blitzes — some of which are clearly backfiring on Republicans.

In an effort to stop the bleeding, state GOP officials say they will not mail out the final two anti-Matheson fliers now sitting in Salt Lake City warehouses. "Together, they are about 46,000 pieces of mail," says GOP executive director Spencer Jenkins, "a rather small mailing considering we've already sent out maybe half a million fliers" in the 2nd District alone.

The flier issue exploded this week when it became known that one flier criticized Matheson for supporting a bill that is actually sponsored by Sen. Orrin Hatch and Rep. Chris Cannon, both R-Utah. The state party sent out 76,000 of those to Salt Lake County voters.

Matheson's own campaign has been running anti-Swallow TV ads, although he says he only started them after Swallow ran negative ads against him first.

Both Matheson and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee have new anti-Swallow ads accusing Swallow of hurting Utah children by voting against a number of "pro-child" bills while he was in the Utah Legislature.

Comments

You can be the first to comment on this story.

Image
Paul Barker, Deseret Morning News

Critical ads in the 2nd Congressional District are turning the U.S. House race into one of the most negative campaigns in Utah history.

Related content
previousnext

Latest comments

Stockton and Malone lived in a different time. These days doctors run tests...

You are exactly right about Harpring. He is a tough, dedicated warrior,...

MWC '09 season in review

Dick, I can't agree because the dredges are still awful without the ability...

Religion in politics is tiresome

you're still calling the kettle black, johnnnie...

who is the article about

Religion in politics is tiresome

["you would probably like our society to be based on origin of species right?...

Stick to the old "Royal Blue"!!!!!! (it's lucky!)

BYU says Hall incident resolved

TO: BYU MORALS wrt "You won't see this at TCU" etc. I beg to disagree. We...

McCoy to resign from Utah Senate

I have known Ben for over twenty years. After attending HS together at...

KSL is No. 1

So how would this rating work if I switch between 2 and 5 for most of the...

Advertisements