The most Republican state in the Union might go blue this fall

Update 11:01 a.m.: After a flurry of questions and criticism surrounding the report, KUTV has unpublished its original story. A SurveyUSA poll from June conducted for The Salt Lake Tribune between Trump, Clinton, and Johnson shows Trump and Clinton tied at 35 percent and Johnson at 13 percent. Our original post appears below.

The last time Utah voted for a Democratic president, it wasn't much of a statement: It was 1964, and 44 of the 50 states tilted for the Democrat Lyndon B. Johnson over the Republican Barry Goldwater in one of the biggest presidential landslides in American history.

Since then, however, the Beehive State has been reliably red — the most Republican state in America, in fact. But this year's Republican nominee, Donald Trump, might change all that, as a new Hinckley Institute-Salt Lake Tribune poll shows Democratic rival Hillary Clinton leading Trump 36 percent to 35 percent in the state. "That is as close as a Democratic candidate has been to victory in more than half a century," reports KUTV, CBS's affiliate in Salt Lake City.

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Back in June, Clinton was tied with Trump at 35 percent in what The Washington Post calls the "ruby-red state" in a poll between the two plus the Libertarian candidate, Gary Johnson. Her current polling lead falls within the survey's margin of error, but for comparison's sake: In 2008, Sen. John McCain almost doubled then-Sen. Barack Obama's vote percentage in Utah, garnering 63 percent to Obama's 34 percent. In 2012, Mitt Romney — whose Mormon faith makes him a favorite in Utah — widened the gap, tallying 69 percent to Obama's 26 percent.