I was going to start a rant about Mormons and their lack of sufficient intelligence to vote. Then I started thinking about the Mormons I know or have met personally since this election cycle began. About 2/3 of them support Trump. I realize that my personal sample size is rather small, less than a dozen or so that I know are Mormon and a fan of Trump. Still it seems like Trump would have picked up a couple of delegates. So what happened in Utah?
I'm not going to rule out GOP grassroots shenanigans similar to what we had here in Wyoming. That is a real possibility. I think that there might be another reason that is at least partially responsible for Trump not getting any delegates there yesterday.
Utah is one of the most culturally homogeneous states in the Union. According to Gallup Utah is 67% Mormon and 23.1% some other Christian denomination. That works out to just over 90% of the states citizens having a firm religious preference. When it comes to crime rates, guess again which state is near the bottom in terms of criminal activity, Utah. Notice, they aren't dead last, but they are very near the bottom in almost every category of criminal activity. It's this way year after year in Utah.
Which state has the best perceived outlook on future economic opportunities? Utah Residents Most Positive About Their State Economy. Unemployment in Utah is running under 3.5%. What about racial demographics? Utah is 91.4% white, and less than 1.4% black, there seems to be a decent amount of racial intermixing with whites and Latinos. I tried to get hard data about refugee resettlement and illegal immigration in Utah. I came up with (by adding together numbers in various SLC Tribune articles) less than 3,000 refugees over a period of 5 years. Compare that to Minnesota.
As a state Utah is over 90% white. They have a great economy with low unemployment and a positive economic perception. The state is very religious (over 90% attend religious services) and 67% go to the same denomination. Crime is low. There is minimal refugee resettlement and thus minimal fear of Islamic fundamentalism.
Donald Trump is a candidate whose primary appeal is to those fed up with the status quo. If you lived in Utah, you'd want to preserve the status quo indefinitely. The Status quo in Utah is better than America circa 1960. It's not surprising that Trump didn't do well in a state like Utah. What is surprising is that Ted Establishment Staking Horse Cruse didn't do better.
Not sure MN is a good comparison to Utah. Those Swedes and Norwegians are just acting like their extended family across the pond. Certain of the churches have gone full liberal in embracing muslims as a theological position as well.
ReplyDeleteGeorge Soros had one of his boardroom cronies oversee the online voting Tuesday. There are reports of districts going 100% for Cruz. Statistically impossible IMO.
ReplyDeleteCruz stood by silently, yet again, while surrogates did his dirty work with ads about Melania Trump. I have seen those ads and the celebs show more skin on the red carpet events than she ever did.
Supposedly Utah is Cruz's last big hurrah, because the voting is set up to be voting, not caucus style in all the remaining states. He doesn't do well in the normal voting.
How anyone could have supported him Tuesday especially after he so cynically exploited the Belgian disaster for his own gain is just beyond comprehension. Utah citizens just cannot be that ignorant.
I can see Utah not wanting to rock the boat. But how can they be so blind to what is going on in the rest of the country?
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