This article was first published in the On the Trail 2024 newsletter. Sign up to receive the newsletter in your inbox on Tuesday and Friday mornings here. To submit a question to next week’s Friday Mailbag, email onthetrail@deseretnews.com.
Hello, friends. T-minus three months until Election Day, as of yesterday. If the past month is any indication, anything — anything — can happen between then and now. Buckle up.
3 things to know
- Vice President Kamala Harris selected Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her vice president pick, individuals close to the situation told news outlets on Tuesday morning. Walz, a former National Guard member and high school teacher, is in his second term as governor. Harris has not yet publicly announced her decision. Read more here.
- Global markets are in flux after a poor U.S. jobs report Friday and other signs of a slowing American economy. Stocks saw some of the worst drops in two years on Monday, reigniting concerns about a potential recession. Trump quickly used the downturn as an opportunity to attack Harris, calling it the “Kamala Crash.” Read more here.
- Who is the best candidate on religious freedom? Conservative Christians have lauded Trump’s Supreme Court selections as major religious liberty wins. But what would a Harris presidency look like in that regard? My colleague Kelsey Dallas has a good explainer here.
The big idea
The fight for the Latter-day Saint vote
There are enough members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Arizona and Nevada — two of this year’s battleground states — to conceivably decide the presidential election. This week, one of the campaigns is making a push to reel them in.
On Tuesday evening, a group called “Latter-day Saints for Harris” is hosting a virtual rally in support of the Democratic presumptive nominee. The Zoom call has the blessing of the Harris campaign, operating under the new “Republicans for Harris” program.
According to Rob Taber, national director of Latter-day Saints for Harris, over 2,400 people had already RSVPed by Tuesday morning.
“We’re a big tent,” Taber said. “You don’t have to agree with all of the Democratic Party platform. This is absolutely a place where people who are undecided can come listen in and hang out.”
The speaker schedule for Tuesday’s call includes two Utah Democratic politicians — Senate Minority Leader Luz Escamilla and Rep. Brian King — and one Arizona Republican: Mesa Mayor John Giles, who recently endorsed Harris for president.
During the 2020 election cycle, Taber held three similar calls, offering a space for Latter-day Saints who are Democrats to gather.
“A lot of members of the church really like having an online home,” Taber said. “If they’re voting for the Democratic candidate, they often feel a little bit lonely or outnumbered in their home wards or stakes, or in their families. And so if we can create a place that’s edifying, that also helps them get involved in the campaign, there’s a lot of good that can come from that.”
Latter-day Saints have long been a reliably Republican voting bloc. In Utah, where the Church of Jesus Christ is headquartered and a majority of the population identifies as Latter-day Saint, a Democratic presidential nominee has not won since 1964.
But in 2016, Trump performed worse in Utah than any Republican in decades, and some prominent Latter-day Saint Republicans — like Sen. Mitt Romney — have been outspoken critics of the former president. But in 2020, Trump coasted to victory in the state, and polls this year show Trump far ahead of Biden among the state’s voters.
It is difficult to know how U.S. Latter-day Saints across the country feel about their 2024 options: Because Latter-day Saints only make up 2% of the U.S. population, they rarely make up a statistically significant sample in national surveys.
One recent survey, with a sample of over 100 Latter-day Saints, offers a glimpse. Conducted by the American Enterprise Institute’s Survey Center on American Life, the small sample of Latter-day Saints were more likely than any other U.S. religious group to say neither political party represents their views. In a head-to-head matchup between Trump and Biden, though, Trump still wins in a landslide, 49% to 17%. (The survey was conducted in early April, when Biden was still the presumptive Democratic nominee.)
Can Harris turn those figures around? That’s what Taber and his group hope. Taber pointed to respect for democracy and humane immigration as two key issues. “I think those are the two biggest things that I’ve heard, actually, from Republicans who are considering supporting Vice President Harris this time around,” he said. “There’s a lot in the platform, even once you get beyond those two, that a lot of people are finding themselves drawn to.”
Meanwhile, the Trump camp is mulling how to win Latter-day Saints, too. In 2020, the Trump campaign launched a formal “Latter-day Saints for Trump” initiative, hosting multiple events in Arizona. This cycle, the campaign has launched a broader “Believers for Trump” program, targeting people of faith from all denominations.
The Trump campaign did not respond to a request for comment about whether it would reboot a Latter-day Saint-specific initiative in 2024.
Trump is planning to visit Utah this month for a fundraiser, and he has secured endorsements from every Latter-day Saint member of Congress except Romney and Rep. John Curtis, R-Utah. Utah Gov. Spencer Cox — a longtime Trump critic who refused to vote for the former president in 2016 and 2020 — endorsed Trump last month.
Trump allies in Utah are working on a project to showcase Trump’s support among Latter-day Saints, said Don Peay, a Utah political operative. “There is a very strong nationwide corps of Latter-day Saint people leading an effort to very clearly delineate what Trump has done on policy, the Supreme Court, etc. that aligns with LDS principles,” Peay said. “There will be an A-list of LDS and non-LDS people who will outline what Trump will do for the future. Stay tuned.”
Whether Latter-day Saints turn out, especially in Arizona and Nevada, could determine the result of the presidential race. While the Latter-day Saint share of the population in both states has decreased in recent decades, members of the church still make up a sizable chunk: More than 440,000 Latter-day Saints live in Arizona, a state Biden won in 2020 by less than 11,000 votes; in Nevada, where over 180,000 Latter-day Saints reside, Biden won in 2020 by about 33,000 votes.
Harris plans to visit Arizona Friday and Nevada Saturday, while Sen. JD Vance — the Republican nominee for vice president — visited both states last week.
What I’m reading
Huntsman, Romney ... and Trump? Susie Wiles, the brains behind Trump’s 2024 campaign, cut her teeth on Jon Huntsman Jr.’s and Mitt Romney’s 2012 campaigns. “Wiles went from working for two members of Mormon GOP royalty to working for Trump at the encouragement and recommendation of some close to Trump,” a new book details. “It was a trajectory that Wiles herself felt the need to explain away.” The Woman Who Engineered Donald Trump’s Rise From the Ashes of 2020 (Meridith McGraw for Vanity Fair)
RFK Jr. dumped a bear in Central Park, as noted in this New Yorker profile. But the most interesting tidbit, to me, was this revelation about Trump’s effect on the idea of presidential character: “I asked Kennedy if Trump’s 2016 victory had changed the way he thought about his own political future; Trump, like Kennedy, had skeletons in his closet. ‘I think that it enlarged the notions of what’s possible’ he said.” What Does Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Actually Want? (Clare Malone, The New Yorker)
A sign of our broken immigration system: “The odds of getting a work permit with a pending asylum case are far better than getting a skilled work visa with a job offer,” as this interactive story outlines. How the broken immigration system is pushing skilled workers to enter illegally (Youyou Zhou, The Washington Post)
See you on the trail.
Editor’s Note: The Deseret News is committed to covering issues of substance in the 2024 presidential race from its unique perspective and editorial values. Our team of political reporters will bring you in-depth coverage of the most relevant news and information to help you make an informed decision. Find our complete coverage of the election here.