It appears that Sen. Mike Lee is about to endorse Gov. Jon Huntsman’s bid to grab the GOP nomination at the upcoming Republican State Convention.
On Thursday, photos of Lee shooting a video with the Huntsman family and his running mate, Michelle Kaufusi, were posted to Facebook.
The photos were quickly taken down, but not before copies of them were downloaded. In one of the pictures, Lee is speaking with Mary Kaye Huntsman, who is wearing the same outfit as in the other photos. In another, Lee is sitting across the table from Marty Carpenter, who is handling communications for Huntsman’s campaign.
An endorsement from Lee would certainly boost Huntsman’s prospects at the upcoming Republican convention. Lee has long been a favorite of Republican delegates.
The Huntsman campaign, as well as representatives for Sen. Lee, did not respond to requests for comment.
Huntsman is currently more than 5,000 verified signatures from qualifying for the primary ballot as of Thursday night. The deadline for securing the 28,000 signatures to appear on the ballot is Monday at 5 pm. If he fails to qualify for the primary ballot through the signature path, he will have to be one of the top two vote-getters at the convention. Or, if he gets 60 percent of the delegate vote, he will be the only candidate to advance to the primary from the convention.
So far, only Spencer Cox and Thomas Wright have secured a spot on the primary ballot. Greg Hughes, Jeff Burningham and Aimee Winder Newton are pursuing a slot in the primary through the convention. If Jan Garbett cannot reach the 28,000 signature threshold, her campaign will be over as she will not pursue the convention route.
The video shoot is likely for the upcoming virtual state convention. Candidates have until April 14 to submit a finished video for the convention, which begins online April 23. According to the guidelines provided to candidates, the videos must be no more than 5 minutes in length and the speech portion of the video cannot be edited.
