Sen. Bennett running 3rd among Republicans

SALT LAKE CITY, April 27 (UPI) -- Sen. Bob Bennett, R-Utah, is running behind two challengers among delegates to the state Republican convention, a new survey finds.

Bennett won a third term in 2004 with nearly 70 percent of the vote. But the poll for The Salt Lake Tribune found lawyer Mike Lee with 37 percent of the delegates and businessman Tim Bridgewater with 20 percent, while Bennett trailed with 16 percent.

Only the top two candidates to emerge from the May 8 convention can run in the June primary, held if no one gets 60 percent of the convention delegates.

"Bennett has almost no shot of getting more votes at the convention than Bridgewater and Lee," said Brad Coker, managing director at Mason-Dixon Polling and Research in Washington.

An earlier poll by Rasmussen Reports put Bennett first.

Bennett said Monday the contest is still "volatile."

"I was on the phone this morning with folks who took the call by announcing they were for Lee and by the end of the call they had changed their minds and said they were for me," he said.

Mason-Dixon surveyed 400 people. The poll has a margin of error of 4.4 percentage points.