Donald Trump held off a late surge of opposition in Utah to secure an underwhelming victory there.
Utah is among the most Republican states in the country. But there was deep opposition there to Trump because of his course behavior on the campaign trail and unorthodox policies that were at odds with traditional conservatism.
Independent conservative presidential candidate Evan McMullin, a former CIA operative with ties to Utah, tried to exploit Trump’s weakness there and swipe the state’s six Electoral College votes.
But he came up short, as most Republicans held their nose and supported their party’s nominee.
McMullin wasn’t the only candidate who showed signs of life in the latter stages of the campaign in Utah, turning it into an unlikely battleground and forcing the Trump campaign lavish attention on it.
Hillary Clinton never trailed Trump by all that much in the state, and some Democrats were optimistic that she might be able to flip the state. The Clinton campaign deployed paid field staff to the state and opened a campaign office in Salt Lake City.
Any momentum Clinton had in Utah probably stalled in late October, when FBI Director James Comey sent a letter to Congress about additional emails it was reviewing in relation to Clinton’s use of a private email server during her tenure as secretary of state.
Comey ended up reaffirming his decision that Clinton shouldn’t be prosecuted, after the review.
But the damage was likely done, and to McMullin as well, although he continued to draw robust crowds to his campaign stops in Utah during the final weeks of the campaign.
