Perception seems fine, every poll I've seen going back 10 years has been positive for nuclear power. Everyone seems to want it, they just don't want it in their backyard.
The Blue Castle project was (is?) a proposal for a nuclear plant in eastern central Utah, which is pretty far from any urban center and buffered by a mountain range. They won a lawsuit regarding water rights more than 5 years ago, but there have been no updates on it for 5-ish years.
There's a SMR project in S. Idaho that was active recently, Unfortunately, it seems to have missed subscription targets, so it's unlikely to move forward. I don't know where those subscriptions are supposed to come from (I'm interested), but I'm guessing it's cities buying in and many dropped out due to financing not being certain.
A lot of the pushback is from politicians, not residents. The popular support is there, but our legislatures and local governments are pretty conservative and unwilling to take risks.