Will Huntsman Run for President Again
Table salt LAKE CITY — When onetime Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. returned to Utah from Moscow last autumn later serving equally President Donald Trump'south U.S. administrator to Russia and jumped into the governor'southward race, many assumed the popular, twice-elected leader would be tough — if not impossible — to vanquish.
But Lt. Gov. Spencer Cox, who'd already been a gubernatorial candidate for six months when Huntsman appear he was trying for a tertiary term, largely stayed out in front throughout the race and now has secured the Republican nomination by a slim margin, a week after the June 30 state primary.
"Lots of people should accept voted for him. He'due south an incredibly talented and qualified person. He'southward literally had the job before," Cox told reporters in his first news conference Tuesday, a day after Huntsman joined quondam Utah House Speaker Greg Hughes and old Utah GOP Chairman Thomas Wright in conceding the race.
The lieutenant governor, who was declared the winner past The Associated Printing Monday with a little over a 9,000-vote atomic number 82, said he sees the closeness of the race "every bit a very positive thing. We believe that nosotros take a lot in common with Ambassador Huntsman, and a lot of the things (voters) were looking for in him, they'll also find in us."
For Huntsman and his supporters, the loss is difficult to empathize.
Neither Huntsman nor his campaign are talking publicly even so about his defeat. In a statement issued afterward the race was called Monday, he expressed "regret that I will not be leading the efforts in moving usa towards a new horizon" and noted it "was anything but a typical campaign season" because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Not only did the virus put an finish to in-person campaigning for months, Huntsman, his wife, and members of his campaign all came down with the novel coronavirus in the final weeks before the election and had to be quarantined.
Zions Banking concern President and CEO Scott Anderson, who backed Huntsman, said polls have shown Utahns viewed Huntsman more favorably than well-nigh politicians, except for his former lieutenant governor, Gov. Gary Herbert, who is not seeking reelection afterwards more than than a decade in office.
Anderson also pointed to a Deseret News/Hinckley Establish of Politics poll in Apr that plant voters trusted Huntsman the most among the gubernatorial candidates to lead the state in a crunch, even though Cox headed upwardly the state's chore force on dealing with the outbreak.
"I'm not sure what happened," Anderson said. "I think Jon ran a dandy campaign. I think his Television set spots were very effective. I think he emphasized his feel and his leadership, everything he could bring to acquit to solve the crunch."
He dismissed talk that later spending nearly a decade out of state, maybe Huntsman's "homecoming wasn't as welcome as he wanted" and said he believes voters were satisfied that the onetime governor was here to stay after returning to fulfill a family unit legacy of public service.
Face-to-face
Even so, Anderson and others said Huntsman would have been meliorate able to rekindle his relationship with Utahns had it not been for the pandemic.
The "large questions" voters had for Huntsman — why was he running once more and, maybe more than chiefly, would he exit role a 2d fourth dimension — needed to be answered face-to-face up, said Jason Perry, director of the Academy of Utah'south Hinckley Institute of Politics and a sometime Huntsman assistants official.
Huntsman stepped down as governor in 2009, less than a yr into his second term, to become U.S. ambassador to Red china under President Barack Obama, and so ran briefly for president in 2012 earlier taking on roles with national groups similar No Labels, which promotes bipartisanship, and the Atlantic Council, a global affairs remember tank.
Republican gubernatorial candidate Jon Huntsman Jr. gives an interview at his campaign office in Salt Lake Metropolis after initial results showed him trailing Lt. Gov. Spencer Cox by less than 1% on the dark of the primary ballot, Tuesday, June 30, 2020.
Spenser Heaps, Deseret News
"These are the kind of questions that you lot answer in town halls, and to people direct. He was not able to do any of that. Then too, he got the virus himself, which dramatically impacted his campaign and his power to engage with the voters," Perry said. "Jon Huntsman needed to reconnect and the circumstances made it exceptionally difficult."
Voters may have forgotten "he left to serve equally one of the most popular governors in the country. In a traditional campaign, he would accept spent his time helping voters to remember why," Perry said. "He was but not able to engage them in the mode he did earlier, and the way that helped him win his elections past such large margins."
In 2004, Huntsman won with virtually 58% of the vote despite facing a formidable Democratic opponent, Scott Matheson Jr., whose father, the belatedly Scott Matheson, was the last Democrat elected governor in Utah twoscore years agone. In 2008, Huntsman bested a little-known challenger, Bob Springmeyer, with virtually 78% of the vote.
His past popularity and experience wasn't enough, given who Huntsman faced in the GOP primary, said Jessica Taylor, Senate and governors editor for the Cook Report, a Washington, D.C.-based online newsletter that analyzes and rates campaigns nationwide.
"If he had been running confronting someone that maybe was a political novice, that argument might accept worked," Taylor said. But any advantage was "muted," she said, given that Cox was already lieutenant governor and had Herbert's backing — even though Huntsman handed over the office to Herbert in 2009.
"With it existence a crowded race, I think that when yous are a former governor and when you are struggling in a way, especially with such a large financial advantage, ultimately information technology'due south a referendum on yous," she said, referring to Huntsman's family fortune that has helped fund the Huntsman Cancer Institute and other philanthropic endeavors.
'Hard to go home'
Besides working against Huntsman, Taylor said, was "a good bit of skepticism," especially amidst more bourgeois Republicans, about his leaving Utah to work for a Democratic president. She as well said Huntsman had said he would not run for governor again, telling Politician in 2014 that he would be "fool-hearted" to try for a third term.
"It's certainly nothing new in politics for politicians to reverse decisions," Taylor said, but voters had plenty of other choices in a field that at one point included eight Republicans. And, because "this is a far more conservative Republican Party than back when he was in office" they were already looking for a less moderate candidate.
In Cox, she said, voters saw a conservative who "still offered that sort of civility and political experience too."
Taylor said she had expected Huntsman to win easily, even though she said it was "puzzling" to run across him running for governor once again since that's not a typical trajectory after serving in ii high-profile ambassadorships and being what she termed a "credible contender" for the White House.
That'due south pushed Huntsman'south unsuccessful bid for a third term into the national spotlight, she said.
"It is notable when they go dorsum and they lose the position they once had," Taylor said. "In the era of politics we have right now, it's difficult to get abode over again."
Neither the Cook Written report nor the University of Virginia'due south "Saboto's Crystal Ball" rated Utah'southward Republican primary race, merely both have put Utah's governorship in the "solid Republican" category for the November full general election, when Cox faces Democrat Chris Peterson, a U. law professor.
J. Miles Coleman, a political analyst for "Saboto's Crystal Ball," said he was surprised, likewise, that Huntsman ran.
"Being a erstwhile governor isn't actually a guarantee that you're going to get dorsum into office," Coleman said, citing others who accept tried and failed, including former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, who also ran for president in 2012 and was unable to secure the GOP nomination for a 3rd term as governor 6 years later.
"He was sort of like Huntsman in that maybe he had some time on the national phase," Coleman said of Pawlenty, who was considered every bit a running mate past the 2012 Republican presidential nominee, now Utah Sen. Mitt Romney. "That type of feel isn't what information technology's kind of cracked up to be."
Runoff ballot?
Dave Hansen, a former Utah GOP chairman who ran campaigns for former Sen. Orrin Hatch and many others, including Davis Canton Commissioner Bob Stephenson's unsuccessful bid this year in the party's 1st Congressional District primary, said voters seemed to be willing to overlook experience for "a brilliant, shiny, new thing."
Hansen said had in that location been a runoff election in the governor'due south race, Huntsman would exist the nominee.
"The system is screwed upwards," he said, since almost 64% of the votes cast in the four-fashion GOP governor's race were for i of the candidates who lost. Every bit of the latest count Tuesday, Cox had just over 36% of the vote, to just under 35% for Huntsman, 21% for Hughes and less than 8% for Wright.
The solution is either a run-off ballot among the peak two vote-getters in a primary or returning to just the conclave and convention system to select candidates. This yr, political party delegates advanced Cox and Hughes to the primary ballot but Cox, Huntsman and Wright all likewise gathered voter signatures to secure a spot on the ballot.
Now what?
What'south side by side for Huntsman remains to be seen.
If Democrat Joe Biden, Obama's vice president, wins the White House in November, Taylor said she could see Huntsman beingness tapped for an informational role related to the international stage, where Utah'due south onetime governor continues to command respect from both parties.
Biden is viewed as someone "who would want some bipartisan reach" in his assistants, Taylor said, just serving in a Autonomous administration equally a secretary of land, a post that has been seen equally Huntsman'south ultimate goal, "may be a stretch,"
Anderson, however, said he expects Huntsman to remain in Utah.
"I think Jon has a nifty future. I remember he will come up upward with a new way to serve and a new mode to provide service and to make a departure here in Utah and maybe the state," Anderson said. "It could be getting involved in the community, in a nonprofit. It could be being a thought leader."
Chris Karpowtiz, co-director of BYU'south Centre for the Study of Elections and Democracy, said information technology would be easier for Huntsman to utilize his noesis of Cathay and Russia to help guide U.South. policy from Washington, D.C., or even New York City.
As far equally another run for elected office, Karpowitz said Huntsman could consider a U.S. Senate race, but likely merely if fellow Republicans Romney or Sen. Mike Lee don't seek reelection. Lee, who was Huntsman'south general counsel as governor, endorsed him in the gubernatorial race.
Merely the political science professor said "in that location are lots of ways to make a difference and serve your country other than balloter politics."
"I retrieve the questions are near his electoral time to come, not about his ability to make a departure in some meaningful way more broadly."
So, Karpowitz said, "it will be fascinating to see what happens, what he does adjacent. I mean, I think we're all eager to see what the next affiliate holds for Jon Huntsman considering clearly, there is more that he would like to exercise and can do."
Source: https://www.deseret.com/utah/2020/7/7/21316103/governors-race-jon-huntsman-jr-what-went-wrong-spencer-cox-third-run
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