Unofficial election results show Democrats are in the lead to pick up 15 seats in the Utah House, with unaffiliated candidates slated to take two. Republicans are on track to lose 17 seats, according to preliminary results posted on election night. In the Senate, Republicans are poised to lose two seats to Democrats.
Rep. Ben McAdams overwhelmingly won the state’s new Democratic-leaning congressional district that turned blue after an anti-gerrymandering lawsuit resulted in new, court-ordered boundaries. Utah’s other three red districts were unsurprisingly won by GOP incumbents, Reps. Blake Moore, Celeste Maloy and Mike Kennedy.
Eric Biggart, a longtime Democratic strategist in Salt Lake County who is a member of the Utah Democratic Party’s executive committee and chair of LDS Democrats, said disbelief initially washed over him as he scrolled down through the state legislative race results. He said they had hoped for maybe four to seven seats – but in the teens? That was unthinkable.
As of Wednesday morning, unofficial election results show Democrats are in the lead to pick up 15 seats in the Utah House, and unaffiliated candidates are slated to take two. Republicans are on track to lose 17 seats. In the Senate, Republicans are poised to lose two seats to Democrats.
Political pundit Taylor Morgan, a political consultant with the lobbying and public affairs firm Morgan & May, told Utah News Dispatch on Wednesday that he was absolutely shocked. He said he expected Democrats to do well in Salt Lake County – but what he didn’t expect was that phenomenon to be so widespread in counties up and down the Wasatch Front, the Wasatch Back and beyond.
“Goodness gracious,” he said. “Look at Davis County. Look at Weber County. They’re both blue. Utah County results are blue in so many ways.”
