Utah's gubernatorial campaign takes sharp turns to negative territory

SALT LAKE CITY — This year's special gubernatorial election wasn't supposed to be controversial, especially after GOP Gov. Gary Herbert emerged with no serious intra-party challenge.

Then, the Democrat in this unusual off-year race, Salt Lake County Mayor Peter Corroon, began raising increasingly negative questions about whether contributions to the governor's campaign influenced the awarding of state contracts

That tone has likely hurt Corroon. The latest Deseret News/KSL-TV poll found Herbert actually had increased his lead slightly, to 25 points, since Corroon's commercials sharply criticizing the governor started airing.

But University of Utah political science professor Matthew Burbank said Corroon had to do something to attract attention to himself as a Democrat running in GOP-dominated Utah, especially in a year that promises to be big for Republicans nationally.

"The only thing you can do to change the momentum of that race is to raise some serious questions," Burbank said. "If you're really going to run and be competitive, you can't run a campaign that says, 'Gee, my opponent is a nice guy.' "

Of course, Burbank said, candidates who resort to negative campaigning usually lose because they haven't made an effective case for themselves. "Basically, we're just seeing an attack," he said.

Still, Burbank said, Corroon may be trying to establish himself as a tough candidate in this race in anticipation of running stronger in the next gubernatorial election, in just two years.

"It makes more sense, because this is a special election," he said. "You can say let's make a real effort now and see how things work out. If nothing else, we should be positioned for next time."

Herbert is expected to run again in 2012, although some of his fellow Republicans have suggested privately that he may be more vulnerable after this race to a challenge from within the GOP.

A new state constitutional amendment required an election to be held for the remaining two years of former Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr.'s term instead of waiting until the next regular gubernatorial election in 2012.

That means Herbert, already elected twice as Huntsman's lieutenant governor, is running on a record of just over a year as the state's chief executive. For his Democratic challenger, the race started two years sooner than expected.