Tim Bridgewater, Mike Lee turn sights on each other in U.S. Senate race

SALT LAKE CITY — After giant-killers Tim Bridgewater and Mike Lee last weekend bagged their top target — incumbent U.S. Sen. Bob Bennett — they are now busy figuring how to battle each other in the June 22 primary election.

Bridgewater is trying to take advantage of an apparent shift of support to him by many former Bennett backers, who may be angry at Lee for his jousts with the senator. Meanwhile, Lee said he believes that continuing his main message of a return to constitutional values will help him win over most Republican voters.

The pair are also trying to overcome new apathy among once-key groups in the race that now don't care much about it since Bennett is gone. In fact, some conservatives are even urging Republicans to ignore the GOP primary and raid the Democratic primary instead to support easier-to-defeat-later Democrats there.

Bridgewater says many former supporters of Bennett are upset at Lee for attacks he made on the senator and have shifted support to him. He is looking at how to capitalize on that, which could be a huge advantage since Bennett had led in polls among all voters even though delegates dumped him.

"I tried to respect other candidates, and just talk about my own issues," Bridgewater said. "I think the attacks between Bennett and Lee hurt each of them." Such fights included mutual allegations of dirty campaign tricks.

Voting swings at the convention show that Bridgewater might be right about a shift to him by Bennett supporters. It started after the first round of convention voting, which had left Lee barely in first place followed by Bridgewater in second and Bennett in third.

Then most supporters of the five other Senate candidates who were eliminated in the first round shifted support to Bridgewater in the second round, helping him pull into first place over Lee, while Bennett was eliminated in third place.

In the third and final round, most Bennett supporters also went to Bridgewater, giving him 57 percent of the vote overall, just short of the 60 percent he needed to win the nomination outright.

Bridgewater said he might have become most delegates' second choice by working in all 29 counties and meeting with thousands of them "to look them in the eye personally and tell them what I believe."