Utah GOP Sen. Orrin Hatch is attempting to win his seventh term in November but must get through his state party’s tricky nominating convention Saturday.
Recent polls show Hatch leading his 10 challengers, and he needs only to be one of the top two vote-getters this weekend to advance to the June 26 primary.
"Anybody who knows me knows I'm a fighter,” said the 78-year-old Hatch, a former boxer.
However, Utah’s election system makes it possible for a handful of voters to effectively end Hatch’s career this weekend. The state is the only one in the country in which candidates must get a high percentage of votes at caucuses and state conventions.
In 2010, three-term GOP Sen. Bob Bennett was ousted at the caucus level in favor of Tea Party favorite Sen. Mike Lee, who also won in the general election.
Bennett had one of the most conservative voting records in the Senate, but like many 2010 incumbents, he couldn’t overcome the wave of voter dissatisfaction with Congress.
"They were angry because ObamaCare had just been passed and so they flooded the caucus meetings and had a very angry electorate that wanted blood on almost all incumbents," recalled Kirk Jowers, associate professor and director of the University of Utah’s Hinckley Institute of Politics.
In addition, moderate Republicans largely didn’t go to the polls that year, which resulted in a relatively small number of caucus-goers ending Bennett’s run.
"You can almost have a U.S. senator or governor elected in Utah with fewer people than would elect a student body president of a high school,” Jowers added.
Hatch took notice and campaigned hard this year – especially after sensing his candidacy could be in trouble -- to fill the caucuses with a friendlier crowd.
"Senator Hatch, I have to admit, did a marvelous job stacking the caucuses," acknowledged state Rep. Chris Herrod, one of Hatch's primary challenger.
Hatch, ranking Republican member of the Senate Committee on Finance, says he’s cautiously optimistic, but he has spent a huge amount of campaign cash to ensure a supportive crowd turns out Saturday.
If Hatch gets more than 60 percent of the vote, he goes straight to general election and skips the costly primary.
Still, he faces a strong conservative electorate, including some who booed him at a candidates’ debate last weekend for supporting the National Defense Reauthorization Act, which critics say violates citizens’ right to due process.
Hatch’s biggest opponent could perhaps be Freedom Works, the libertarian-based group founded by former Texas GOP Rep. Dick Army. The group says Hatch supports expansive government and is against economic freedom.
Hatch rejects the argument he is against libertarians, saying it is Freedom Works, specifically, that he does not like.
“I’m offended by Freedom Works … run by radical libertarians,” he said. “They've come in here and put out a 44-page brochure that is filled with disingenuity, distorting portions of my voting record, absolute lies of my voting record.”
He also has faced a ton of outside money coming into the state to try to help elect a younger candidate.
"I'm a tough old bird,” Hatch said. “I can take it.”
