Yet another poll has showed Representative Jim Matheson competitive in the Utah Senate race, particularly against Representative Jason Chaffetz, who is set to take on Senator Orrin Hatch in the Republican primary. Matheson hasn't made any declarations, but with more than one poll showing him in good position, it's very possible that he's considering the race. He's no novice to run a tough race and has survived in an R+15 seat over numerous cycles. Plus, his family name is well respected in the state and that's a boost for him as well. Matheson's chances are weighted by rather or not Romney wins the Presidential primary and if Hatch survives the caucus, so that will clearly be a factor. If Romney doesn't pull it off and Hatch loses the caucus, then Matheson is in a great position.
Utah is solidly Republican, mainly due to the dominance of the Church of Latter Day Saints. Democrats haven't won here statewide since 1996, when Jan Graham was re-elected the state's attorney general. The closest thing to a competitive election was 2000's gubernatorial, where another overachieving Utah Democrat, Bill Orton, took 42% in the gubernatorial.
Using that election and looking at Jan Graham's path to winning statewide, I have developed a model of how Matheson can pull this off.
This how the map must look for Matheson to win running against Chaffetz. Winning the Democratic counties and lighter Republican voting counties is critical, this is where all his natural support would be. 60% in Salt Lake County is a must, no exceptions. Carbon, Emery, Grand, San Juan, Summit must also be in his column with numbers over 50%. Wasatch County will also be critical for a win. On the other side of the state, Tooele County is also a must win.
Weber County is sometimes a bellwether for the statewide vote and he definitely has to win there narrowly. This is the beginning of the tough part, which also includes running extremely well in Davis County. The good news for Matheson is that both counties saw shifts in the Republican margin in 2008, so there is potential there for him to tap.
Okay, he's does all that and that gets him to about to 45% of the vote, 2 points better than Orton's gubernatorial margin and 3 points more than Scott Matheson Jr's 2004 one. This is where it gets really hard. Pulling in that last few percentage points entails getting 40% in the dark red Utah County. Jan Graham managed to do this in 1996 and it was key to her win. Of course, that was over 15 years ago, but Utah hasn't gotten at all more Republican since then, so it may be possible for Matheson to do that. That would account for about 20,000 or so votes that will be key to Matheson's margin. Realistically, he could push to 35% or so and try to scrape up the rest of the margin elsewhere, which would be about 6,000 or so votes, but that's about the lowest he can get in Utah County and still win.
The main thing that Matheson has to do is solidify the Democratic base and that may be a challenge in itself, since a lot of liberals in Salt Lake County are not big on Matheson's record and with little room for error, any such division could make or break the race. So he's got more than one challenge to contend with.
My model gives Matheson a very narrow win, a 50-50 divide and that only accounts for counties that I mentioned, I didn't crunch the others ones, since movements would likely be more slight. By my estimation, Matheson needs 451,000 votes, approximately 112,000 more than Obama got in the state in 2008. And that again, will depend on who is at the top of the ticket, Matheson needs to hope it isn't Romney, as the home state effect doesn't derail his chances. If Matheson plays his hand right, he can lock in 42-45% of the vote early on and then focus on the remainder during the homestretch. That's my analysis, now you can add your own thoughts and ideas where Matheson needs to focus to pull off a winning campaign.