Moore’s internal poll shows he has a wide lead in U.S. House race
Photos supplied
From left, the Republican hopefuls for the 1st District U.S. House seat are incumbent Blake Moore, Tina Cannon and Andrew Badger. They face off in the Tuesday, June 28, 2022, GOP primary.Internal polling conducted by the campaign of U.S. Rep. Blake Moore shows him with a wide lead among would-be voters as the June 28 Republican primary approaches.
His GOP challengers, though, are taking the figures with a grain of salt. The three candidates were scheduled to meet in a debate today, while mail-in ballots are to be sent out starting next week.
“Our internal polling shows much different results,” said Tina Cannon, the former Morgan County Council member trying to unseat the one-term incumbent.
Andrew Badger, the third Republican contender, likewise expressed skepticism.
“This was an internal poll, so it comes through a biased source,” he said. There’s about a month of campaigning left, he said, and a lot of television ads to come out to sway voters.
According to figures from a telephone poll of Republican voters in the 1st District conducted May 3-5 by the Tarrance Group for the Moore campaign, the first-term incumbent garnered support from 59% of respondents. Next came Badger with 10% and Cannon with 8%, with 21% of those polled undecided.
A May 26 survey conducted by text showed similar results — Moore with 59% backing, Badger at 8% and Cannon at 6%. Undecided voters accounted for 27% of the total.
Badger garnered nearly 60% support among delegates at the Utah Republican Party convention in April and he thinks more supporters will flock to his candidacy as they learn more about Moore. Badger noted with derision Moore’s support last year for creating a commission to investigate the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol and Moore’s support of a GOP proposal, which never gained traction, to censure Trump after the 2021 incident.
The poll from early May showed Moore with more than 60% support among members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, voters aged 65 and up and primary voters who frequently watch Fox News. He also garnered 58% backing among voters who have a strongly favorable impression of former President Donald Trump.
The winner of the primary will go against Democrat Rick Jones in the general election.