Utah Republican Governor calls out right wing media for anti-vaccine "propaganda"

[SouthBayDem]

The Salt Lake Tribune reports:

Gov. Spencer Cox said the anti-vaccination “propaganda” coming from right-wing media is likely harming efforts to get more Utahns vaccinated against COVID-19.

“I think it’s harmful. It’s certainly not helpful,” Cox said Thursday, during his monthly KUED news conference.

Cox noted that Utah’s vaccination rate has started to tick up recently, but that’s been accompanied by a sharp increase in new COVID-19 cases.

The Utah Department of Health reported Thursday that another 693 Utahns had been diagnosed with COVID-19, and four more deaths were attributed to the disease. The seven-day rolling average of cases — a statistic experts use to follow trends in case counts — rose to 519 per day, the first time since March 14 the average has gone above 500.

KUED is Utah's PBS station.

Utah is a historically Republican state that last elected a Democrat for governor in 1980 - a year with plenty of cross ticket voting, as voters went 55% for incumbent Scott Matheson yet 72% for Reagan. The last time Utah picked a Democrat for president was in the 1964 LBJ landslide. The last time Utah elected a Democrat for senator was in 1970 with the re-election of Frank Moss - who was succeeded by Republican Orrin Hatch in '76 (a rare D-to-R flip in the year Carter won the presidency) and eventually Mitt Romney in 2018.

So for a governor in a solidly Republican state to speak publicly against Fox/Newsmax/OANN etc. really has to strike a nerve with plenty of his voters. Or are there really that many crossover voters in Utah (like those who voted Reagan for president and Matheson for governor in 1980)?

[Turbineguy]

1. The dead can still vote

as long as they are republicans.

Right?