Plus: How a Utahn turned a 2002 Winter Games job into an international Olympic consulting career.
View in browser
Utah Today Logo
By Brigham Tomco Friday September 8, 2023

Good morning. Today’s temperatures:

 

Logan: 53 - 85° ☀️

Salt Lake City: 65 - 90° ☀️

St. George: 6 - 96° ☀️

 

Corendon Airlines, a Turkish-Dutch company, will begin including child-free airplane zones for its 10-hour flights between Amsterdam and the Caribbean island of Curaçao this November.

 

Seats in the child-free section will cost an additional $50. 

 

Tell me: Would you pay extra for a child-free airplane experience? Or (to get on my good side because I have a toddler and 6-month-old baby), tell me: Why do your best memories of long travel times involve children?

 

Also on our mind: A new Utah lawsuit attempts to bar Trump from the 2024 election ballot, what we can do about Utah’s $130M budget shortfall and why this year’s soccer showdown between BYU and Utah will be unlike any other. 

Does Trump have a problem with Latter-day Saint voters?

 

In 2016, Donald Trump’s support among members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints — typically a strong Republican voting bloc — was historically poor. In 2020, his performance improved, though he still trailed previous GOP nominees.

 

In 2024, as the former president seeks a second term, does Trump still have a “problem” with Latter-day Saint voters? A new study from the conservative American Enterprise Institute suggests that he does.

 

A recent poll conducted by the Survey Center on American Life, a project of AEI, shows that Trump’s support among Latter-day Saints is “deteriorating,” says Daniel A. Cox, the Survey Center’s director.

 

“It would be difficult to design a Republican candidate less appealing to Latter-day Saint voters than Donald Trump,” Cox writes.

 

In the AEI poll, a majority of Latter-day Saints express a negative view of Trump, with 51% saying they have a somewhat unfavorable or very unfavorable view of him. Twice as many Latter-day Saints view him very unfavorably (40%) as those who view him very favorably (19%).

 

That’s a big contrast from White Evangelical Protestants, with whom Latter-day Saints often appear similar to in public opinion polling dealing with various social issues. Among White Evangelical Protestants, 67% have a favorable view of Trump, and only 19% have a very unfavorable view of him — half of the share of Latter-day Saints.

 

“In all the ink that’s been spilled trying to figure out what happened to Evangelicals — a constituency that cared so much about candidate character ... that suddenly just flipped when it came to Donald Trump — you didn’t see that same pattern among LDS voters,” Cox told the Deseret News. “They were fairly consistent on the issues that they care about and the way that they evaluated candidates. That’s been a really important story.”

Read more about why the Latter-day Saint vote may become a key voter bloc in the 2024 primary.

 

More in Politics

  • 2nd District GOP nominee Maloy’s lead grows as she prepares for November election (Deseret News)
  • New Utah lawsuit attempts to bar Trump from 2024 election ballot (Deseret News)
  • Could a government shutdown actually happen? (Deseret News)
  • Hunter Biden to be charged in gun case, special counsel says (Deseret News)
  • Cliff Smith: Donald Trump and the politics of prosecution (Deseret News)
Oly ut-2023-09-08

How a Utahn turned a 2002 Winter Games job into an international Olympic consulting career

Bringing his HR expertise to the task, one Cottonwood Heights man is leading the effort to bring another Winter Games to Utah in 2030 or 2034.

 

As the only full-time employee of the Salt Lake City-Utah Committee for the Games, Darren Hughes is responsible for assembling thousands of pages of details that make up a bid under the International Olympic Committee’s new selection process. 

 

“He basically organizes all of the technical work. Everything,” said Fraser Bullock, president and CEO of the bid committee, putting together specifics about everything from the number of seats available for each event to water use during the year the Games are held.

 

The stacks of spreadsheets, maps, contracts, vision statements, sustainability plans and other information needed to complete the IOC’s 39-page “Future Host Questionnaire” are nearly all ready, even though nothing’s due until the next stage of the bid process.

 

Hughes, who was brought on board shortly after the bid committee was created in early 2020 and has quietly labored behind the scenes ever since, is “the heart of that work,” Bullock said. “He’s simply amazing.”

 

Bullock and Hughes worked together on the 2002 Games. As chief operating officer, Bullock saw firsthand how Hughes helped grow the workforce to 50,000 people, including 24,000 volunteers recruited with the slogan, “Hard Work. No Pay. Long Hours. Better Hurry.”

 

After the 2002 Games, Hughes was looking at reentering the corporate world, but the consulting projects he was picking up felt like “just more traditional HR stuff, not very exciting.”

 

Then the International Olympic Committee came calling.

 

Read more about how Hughes became an IOC consultant. 

Round out your day (v5)

Health

  • Abortion numbers are up in 2023 compared to 2020, data estimate shows (Deseret News)
  • Video: Director of Utah's Office of Families takes on social media (Deseret News)

Family 

  • Survey: Do most women take their husband’s last name? And will future brides? (Deseret News)
  • Naomi Schaefer Riley: How family status played into pandemic happiness (Deseret News)

Economy 

  • Carolyn Phippen and Thomas Young: What we can do about Utah’s $130M budget shortfall (Deseret News)
  • Ben Wilterdink: Why Utah will lead phase 2 of the AI revolution (Deseret News)

Salt Lake County

  • Top 5 most affordable ZIP codes near Salt Lake, Utah (Deseret News)
  • Woman unaware of red and blue flashing lights on her car didn't realize why drivers pulled over (KSL)

Utah County

  • Woman claiming to have gun on UVU campus prompts evacuation (KSL)
  • Jake Anderegg to resign from the Utah Senate after 11 years (KSL)

The West

  • What is it about LoToJa that continues to attract cyclists from all around the country? (Deseret News)
  • Newsom signs executive order preparing California for AI (Politico)

The Nation

  • Utah AG announces tentative settlement reached in Google Play lawsuit (Deseret News)
  • Biden cancels oil and gas leases Trump issued in Alaskan Arctic (AXIOS)

The World

  • Rescuers in Turkey rush to save American explorer trapped deep in Turkish cave (Deseret News)
  • Arthur Cyr: Disruption and instability are growing in Africa (Deseret News)

Sports

  • This year’s soccer showdown between BYU and Utah will be unlike any other (Deseret News)
  • BYU entered new arena in landing four-star recruit Marcus Adams (Deseret News)
  • BYU gets commitment from 3-star edge rusher Devoux Tuataga (Deseret News)
  • ‘It’s been a good path’: After doing what no Utes punter has done since 2014, is punting back at Utah? (Deseret News)
  • Jennifer Graham: How the NFL stole Christmas — again (Deseret News)

That's all for today. Check your inbox tomorrow morning for more news from the Beehive State and beyond!

 

And reply to this email or email newsletters@deseretnews.com to tell us what you think of Utah Today!

 

Thank you for reading.

 

— Brigham

Deseret_News_black__yellow_period
Twitter
Facebook
Instagram
Pinterest
Website

Copyright © 2022 Deseret News, All rights reserved.

Deseret News Publishing Company, 55 N 300 W Ste 500, Salt Lake City, UT 84101

Manage preferences