More analysis of Bob Bennett's Chances.

Does Bennett have a chance at winning again in 2010? The other day, I pointed out that 15% of Salt Lake County voters chose John McCain for President and Peter Caroon for SL County Mayor. But there was also a significant percentage of SL county voters that voted for Barack Obama for President and John Huntsman, Jr for Utah Governor. About 21% to be exact. Huntsman won about 70% of the vote in SL county. He also won in Summit and Grand county...where Barrack Obama won. And he even won in Carbon and Emery county--traditional Democrat counties in Utah.

I would say that Huntsman is at least as popular in Utah as Palin is in Alaska. We will see if his popularity holds out when the economic tsunami finally arrives at the Wasatch Front. I expect that if Utah handles this well, Huntsman will still be popular in 2012.

Under normal circumstances, you could use the governors race to predict the senate race. But Huntsman is an anomaly. The voter turnout in Utah was so high that you may not want to use any race to predict Bennett's chances in 2010. But the races of the three congressional disticts may be the best predictor. Here is what we have...

District 1
Bishop (R) 186,031 Bowen (D) 87,139

District 2
Dew (R) 111,696 Matheson (D) 204,268

District 3
Chaffetz (R) 171,936 Spencer (D) 73,294

Total GOP 469,663 Total Dem 364,701
56.29% 43.71%

If the Dems nominate the right person, they have a chance. If they nominate the type of person they usually nominate for Senate in Utah--such a Bob Springmyer, they couldn't beat Ted Stevens. One of the problems with the Democratic party in Utah is that they don't recognize an opening when they see one.

Also of note. Weber and Davis county have close to the same population. Davis county cast about 45,000 more ballots. This is the most ponderous statistic of the election.

http://www.electionresults.utah.gov/xmlData/main.html