According to conservative political analyst A.B. Stoddard, Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) may have put an end to his political career in Utah due to his attachment -- and defense -- of Donald Trump, which has appalled some of the Republican voters who hold his fate in their hands.
Lee is facing an insurgent campaign conducted by Evan McMullin, a "never-Trump" conservative running as an independent, and Stoddard, writing for the Bulwark, said there is a very real possibility that Lee could lose to the former CIA officer purely over the Trump issue.
As she wrote, "Over the last six years, Donald Trump has ruined many Republican political careers. Lee is now scrambling to avoid becoming another of them," before adding that the race is now in a "dead heat."
According to the conservative analyst, Lee isn't facing ouster due to an uptick in liberal or moderate voters -- it's Utah's GOP voters who are turning their backs on him.
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"His re-election is teetering because of Republican voters who are disgusted by his full embrace of Trump—including his attempts to help Trump overturn the 2020 election. These machinations created space for former CIA officer Evan McMullin to run as an independent after convincing the Utah Democratic Party not to put anyone on the ballot this year," she wrote before cautioning, "Lee is still the favorite to win. He’s the incumbent and a Republican running in a deep-red state against an independent who’s never won a statewide election. He should be running away with this thing. But the latest Deseret News/Hinckley Institute of Politics polls—the gold standard in Utah—found McMullin in a tight race with Lee."
As Stoddard wrote, Lee once opposed Trump as the GOP's presidential nominee, but has become nothing less than a Trump "sycophant" since then; going so far as to suck up to the former president's family members in order to gain his favor.
"Unlike Ben Sasse and Tim Scott, who tried to accommodate Trump by mostly pretending the president didn’t exist, Lee went to work building relationships with the Trumps. He started with Ivanka and Jared Kushner and was so successful in sucking up to the Boss Man that he made his way (along with his brother) onto Trump’s list of potential Supreme Court justices," she explained.
According to one Utah GOP activist, Lee's defense of Trump -- and of the Jan 6th insurrection he inspired -- has directly contributed to his downfall with Utah's conservative voters.
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“He’s become the [former senator] Bob Bennett of our state. He was voted in because Bob Bennett was too arrogant and not listening and now he’s become the senior senator who is too arrogant and not listening," they stated. "He’s tasted the wine and he wants more and he loves power and thinks that means sticking with Donald Trump now, regardless of what he represents.”
You can read more here.
