Mormon Voters' Antipathy Toward Trump Has Roots In The Church's Own History
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Trump's troubles in Utah became clear during the state's March primary, when he received just 14 percent of the vote—his smallest share in any of the states that had voted in primaries up to that point, according to Politico. Trump's popularity in the state remained tenuous as he emerged as the presumptive nominee, and while a recent Utah poll showed Trump leading Democrat Hillary Clinton, Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson was surging in his wake.
"He should be in the sixties right now and he’s not," Quin Monson, a pollster and political science professor at Brigham Young University, said of Trump's polling numbers.
Political scientists and strategists in the state told TPM they believe Trump will ultimately win there. But that doesn't change many Utahns' antipathy toward the nominee, which experts say has its roots in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The legacy of being a minority religious group that was alienated, threatened and driven from their homes is a very strong piece of the modern Mormon identity.
"Mormons believe knowing their history is very important," said Tim Chambless, an associate professor of political science at the University of Utah. "Mormons know that they had to flee. They were essentially chased out of Ohio, out of Illinois, out of Missouri. They know in 1838 the governor of Missouri ordered an executive order that you could practically murder Mormons on site."
Trump's proposals to ban Muslim immigration to the U.S. or suspend the flow of refugees from countries with terrorist ties have sounded alarm bells for many Utahns, even as Republicans have embraced that message in other states.
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http://talkingpointsmemo.com/dc/mormon-voters-antipathy-trump
