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Situational awareness - September 3, 2019

Good Tuesday morning from Salt Lake City.

Welcome back from the long holiday weekend.

Thanks for reading Utah's must-read daily political news rundown. Please encourage your friends and colleagues to sign up for our emails.

Here are the stories you need to pay attention to this morning:

• There's a sharp partisan divide among Utahns over whether the 2020 census should include a citizenship question.
• McAdams talks 2020, impeachment, and gun control.
• Hurricane Dorian is downgraded to a Category 3 but continues to threaten Florida.
• Democrats plan to probe Trump's alleged role in hush-money payments.

Trivia time

Our polling shows President Donald Trump sitting at 40% in Utah ahead of his 2020 re-election bid. Trump carried Utah in 2016 with only 45.5% of the vote, which is a shockingly low level of support in a heavily Republican state. If Trump's support in Utah holds at that level, it would not be the lowest vote percentage by a winning presidential candidate in a popular vote statewide presidential election.

That honor belongs to Woodrow Wilson, who got 32.1% of the vote in Idaho in 1912. Thanks to Smart Politics for the answer.

Quite a few readers got the year right (1912), but incorrectly guessed Willam Howard Taft, who carried Vermont that year with 37.1%.

TICK TOCK

Days to the 2019 Utah municipal elections: 63 (11/5/2019)

Days to the first day of the 2020 Utah Legislature: 146 (1/27/2020)

Days to the Utah presidential primaries: 186 (3/3/2020)

Days to the 2020 Utah primary elections: 295 (6/23/2020)

Days to the 2020 election: 427 (11/3/2020)

Today At Utah Policy

OTHER UTAH HEADLINES

Deseret News

• Jay Evensen: A successful performance audit of Utah schools means no politics or hurt feelings
• Q&A: Utah Sen. Mitt Romney talks Iran, gun control and the future of the Republican Party
• Romney, Lee join GOP memo condemning Democrats' court packing 'threat'
• Will the fight against big tech monopolies bring Republicans and Democrats together?
• St. George city councilman dies unexpectedly
• Committee punts on plurality - but issue may be back after November election
• Utah Inland Port's new boss says state has a chance to build a green, technological 'legacy' unlike anything in the U.S.
• 'We want to keep farming': These Utah farmers want to annex into North Salt Lake, but neighbors don't want the 1,100-unit development it would bring

Salt Lake Tribune

• Editorial: Utah's biggest pollution threat? You're living in it
• Overstock.com is sticking to its game plan as Jonathan Johnson takes over for its eccentric CEO
• Utah sets new goals to cut water use, but critics say it goes too easy on Washington County
• Rod Decker says Utah politics is usually a fight between Mormons and non-Mormons - and we know who wins
• Salt Lake County will redo bidding for Salt Palace concessions contract after losing company cries foul
• Family, friends pay tribute to former Utah first lady Norma Matheson
• Polygamy would be on par with a traffic ticket under pitch to Utah legislators

Other

• Handy, Stevenson, Hough mull 1st Congressional District bids, others may be in the mix as well (Standard-Examiner)
• Summit County would be off the hook for medical pot distribution under new proposed changes (Park Record)

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NATIONAL HEADLINES

Hurricane Dorian

The storm has been downgraded to Category 3 as it continues to threaten the Florida coast. At least five people died in the Bahamas over the weekend because of the storm [AP].

President Donald Trump unleashed a barrage of 122 tweets over the long holiday weekend, many of them about Hurricane Dorian [NYT].

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Gun Control

Democratic 2020 hopefuls are all over the map with proposals to address gun violence [NYT].

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The investigations

Congressional Democrats say they plan to launch an investigation into President Trump's role in a hush-money scheme designed to keep several extramarital affairs from coming to light during the 2016 campaign [WaPo].

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2020

Some of President Trump's close advisers worry his erratic behavior over the summer may sabotage his chances at re-election in 2020 [WaPo].

Right now, the top-3 Democratic presidential contenders are Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren. The rest of the field is fighting for attention and campaign dollars [Politico].

Just four states will likely determine the outcome of the 2020 presidential race [WaPo].

Why is Joe Biden running for president? [NYT]

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Trump vs. the media

President Trump's campaign plan to make allegations of bias by social media platforms a key plank in his re-election efforts. The goal is to erode trust in information sources [Axios].

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Ummm...

Last week President Trump tweeted out what appeared to be a classified photo of a failed Iranian rocket launch. The picture likely came from one of the US's newest, and most secret, spy satellites [Business Insider].

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Ending the war in Afghanistan?

The US and Taliban have reached an agreement "in principle" for a gradual drawdown of the 14,000 troops in the country [CNN].

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North Korea

Experts believe North Korea has developed missiles with greater range and maneuverability that could overwhelm American defenses in the region [NYT].

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BUSINESS HEADLINES

• Utah Inland Port's new boss says state has a chance to build a green, technological 'legacy' unlike anything in the U.S. (Deseret News)
• Skyscraper proposed to replace Salt Lake City's century-old Utah Theater (Deseret News)
• Overstock.com is sticking to its game plan as Jonathan Johnson takes over for its eccentric CEO (Salt Lake Tribune)

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Policy News

Romney joins Republican colleagues in sending unified message against Democrats' court-packing threat
U.S. Senator Mitt Romney (R-UT) joined all of his Senate Republican colleagues, led by U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham (R-SC), in sending a letter to the Supreme Court of the United States condemning Democrats' recent threats to pack the Supreme Court. Full text of the letter can be found below and here.

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CYBER24 podcast: As more Utah state employees embrace teleworking, officials have eye on cybersecurity
Last month, Utah Lt. Gov. Spencer Cox announced a pilot program testing the benefits of state employees teleworking showed increased productivity, reduced carbon output by eliminating the commute to an office and allows for more efficient use of state office space.

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Leading industry, academic experts appointed to Space Dynamics Lab board
Utah State University's Space Dynamics Laboratory announced it has named Lisa Berreau, Lesa Roe, and Kathryn Tobey to its Board of Trustees.

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More National Headlines

• GOP Judiciary member predicts Horowitz FISA report will lead to indictments (Washington Examiner)
• President Trump ordered US firms to ditch China, but many already have and more are on the way (CNBC)
• The lazy assertion that Hurricane Dorian is caused by climate change (Spectator)
• New York is running out of fuel and power - just as Cuomo planned (New York Post)
• Jeffrey Epstein's 'fixer' who ran major modelling agency vanishes 'like a ghost' (Mirror)
• Media takes hits in bitter partisan era (The Hill)
• In praise of Melania Trump, the first lady treated terribly by the media (New York Post)
• Minnesota tried to compel Christian filmmakers to celebrate gay marriage (Wall Street Journal)
• 'Time is running out': Democratic race is about to get serious (Associated Press)
• Biden seen as weak front-runner as 2020 U.S. Democratic race heats up (Reuters)
• The American Consumer Keeps Beating Expectations (Wall Street Journal)

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

1777 - The U.S. flag was flown in battle for the first time during a Revolutionary War conflict at Cooch's Bridge, Delaware.

1783 - The Treaty of Paris was signed, officially ending the American Revolutionary War and recognizing U.S. independence from Britain.

1838 - Future abolitionist Frederick Douglass escapes from slavery.

1929 - The Dow Jones industrial average closed at 381.17, its pre-crash high.

1935 - Sir Malcolm Campbell reaches a speed of 304.331 miles per hour on the Bonneville Salt Flats, becoming the first person to drive an automobile over 300 mph.

1939 - Britain and France declared war on Germany, two days after the Nazi invasion of Poland.

1944 - Anne Frank and her family are placed on the last transport train from the Westerbork transit camp to the Auschwitz concentration camp.

1976 - The unmanned U.S. spacecraft Viking 2 landed on Mars to take the first close-up, color photographs of the planet.

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