New Utah Poll: Trump Gap Quantified, Latter-day Saint Politicians, And More
Analysis of new Libertas/Overton Insights poll
Introduction
A new poll from Libertas Institute has revealed some stark truths about the Utah voter. While the headlines covered the basics, I wanted to dig deeper into the crosstabs to show you what the data actually says.
Reading through their methodology, it seems pretty robust. They invested in a large sample size (1000 registered voters) which included 504 Latter-day Saints. They used a multimodal approach (text and online panel) which is considered one of the best standards these days. Their methodology reads “sampling was stratified…during allocation” meaning they used demographic quotas. They also weighted the results post collection to match the Utah adult population.
Two methodological questions I would have (both probably a bit nitpicky):
What behavioral measures were used in weighting? I assume this is voting turnout?
Which online panel provider was used? Specifically, was the online portion matched to a registered voter file (like the text portion likely was)? This is the 'gold standard' for ensuring we aren't just getting random internet users, but actual Utah voters.
Charts
If asked today whether Latter-day Saints would vote for Trump again if an election were held today, 58% said they would. However, this is compared to 68% of Latter-day Saints that voted for him in 2024.
This 10-point delta creates a quantifiable 'Hold Your Nose' gap. Essentially, 1 in 7 Latter-day Saints who voted for Trump did so likely out of utility, despite not supporting him today. This confirms that for a chunk of the LDS electorate, the vote was a transaction, not an endorsement.
In the news, we hear about the “politically homeless” latter-day saints, but from this chart we can see that Latter-day Saints aren’t the only ones who feel this way. In fact, statistically non-LDS Utahns feel this way in the same numbers!
I would love to see this question asked of some national pollsters. Is this a Utah thing? What is the national baseline for this question?
Not so surprisingly, Utah Latter-day Saints are more approving of Latter-day Saint politicians. We can see a tale of two Utahs across LDS and non LDS in this chart: the culture approving of a candidate and the counter culture disapproving.
Interestingly, the counter culture opposes one Latter-day Saint politician more than the others. And yes, it’s Mike Lee. A whopping 41% of non-LDS “Strongly Disapprove” of him. Interestingly, Mike Lee has the most Strong Approvers from the Latter-day Saint crowd at 25%, yet also the most Strong Disapprovers among Latter-day Saints (21%).
All Utah voters really want only one thing… Affordability! And they want it in the form of…
A lower cost of living
More affordable healthcare
More affordable home ownership
Tax relief
I think I was expecting more differences between these two groups, but their top 4 (and more) priorities are exactly the same. Though, I probably would have chosen different issues in the list. For example, I would have excluded “Increasing Privacy from Government Surveillance” and included something like immigration, environmental protections (the great salt lake), attracting businesses in the silicon slopes, or other things.
This result stands at odds with the national stereotype that 'Suburban Republican = NIMBY.' While Donald Trump has campaigned against density, Utah Latter-day Saints break the mold with 84% support for ADUs. This suggests that for Utahns, housing isn't viewed through the lens of 'density'—it's viewed through the lens of Property Rights and Family Autonomy. The prevailing attitude isn't 'Not in my backyard,' it's 'It's my backyard, I'll do what I want.'
Conclusion
It is truly an era where voters are worried about affordability. Housing appreciation has been great for home owners the last decade, but the other side is now being unaffordable for the first timers. You can see some of this in my post last week — look at those home prices go!
Also, I found this poll interesting as it indirectly measures the LDS Trump hesitancy. I’ll try to find resources about Latter-day Saints and Trump as very recently there has been some regression in attitudes toward Trump even among the loyal evangelicals.
What do you think about what I shared here today? Would you add or take away anything? Did I miss anything?
Next week, I have more charts prepared from this poll, but with a lighter pop culture focus that I think many of you will find interesting.
See you soon!
I think it's a big stretch to conclude LDS-Utah, or even Utah in general is breaking the NIMBY mould just because slightly more than 80% people are okay with their neighbours building a backyard or garage suite. That's probably one of the smallest increases in density a single family home lot could undergo. That's potentially not even one additional family worth of space (it does say small, so I'm assuming the question, and those answering it, are picturing something for 1-2 people, maybe 3 at most if it's a couple with a kid that's still small before they go elsewhere). I would be far more surprised if the same results occured and the question asked something like "If a property owner in your neighborhood demolished the house on it and replaced it with a four-unit row house with four secondary suits (8 units total), taking care to follow all building, safety, and noise laws, would this be okay?" I think the results would be much different. I used an 8-unit example as I'm told this is one of the most common types of "missing middle" housing needed by many cities in NA having the density conversation.
Thank you for your time putting these weekly posts together.
Befuddled by how many people strongly approve of Mike Lee...