A nationwide rebuke of Republican policies trickled down to Utah’s state legislative races hours after polls closed on Tuesday, leaving more than a dozen GOP incumbents at an early disadvantage against Democrats, third-party, and unaffiliated candidates, The Salt Lake Tribune reported.
While election officials still had thousands of votes to count late Tuesday night, the preliminary numbers showed tight races in districts up and down the Wasatch Front, as well as in Cache County. Despite the potential for Democrats to pick up seats in the Republican-dominated Legislature, breaking the GOP’s legislative supermajority remains a steep uphill battle.
The Republican Party currently controls 22 of the 29 seats in the state Senate and 60 of the 75 seats in the House. To strip the party of its two-thirds supermajority and reduce it to a majority, the GOP would have to lose three seats in the Senate and at least 11 seats in the House.
Tuesday night’s shifting margins arrived as voters across the country delivered major victories to Democrats in congressional races, pushing back against President Donald Trump’s administration.
Meanwhile, Utah’s only third-party lawmaker fought to hold onto her Senate seat in a district spanning parts of Tooele, Salt Lake, and Utah counties. Sen. Emily Buss, a member of the Forward Party, ran narrowly behind Republican Brooks Benson as the late-night tallies rolled in. Buss joined the Senate last year after former Sen. Daniel Thatcher resigned from the GOP, joined the Forward Party, and subsequently stepped down. To prevent a Republican victory, the Democratic nominee in that race had withdrawn back in August.
| District | Candidates & Percentages |
|---|---|
| Senate District 5 (open) | CJ Hernandez (D) 57.3% Rep. Jill Koford (R) 42.7% |
| Senate District 19 | Shana Anderson (D) 56.9% Sen. Kirk Cullimore (R) 43.1% |
| House District 3 | Patrick Belmont (unaffiliated) 58.8% Rep. Jason Thompson (R) 41.2% |
| House District 4 | Zane Woolstenhume (D) 51.8% Rep. Tiara Auxier (R) 48.2% |
| House District 9 | Angela Choberka (D) 53.7% Rep. Jake Sawyer (R) 46.4% |
| House District 10 (open) | Rosemary Lesser (D) 63% Jim Alvey (R) 37% |
| House District 20 | Phil Graves (D) 52% Rep. Melissa Garff Ballard (R) 48% |
| House District 26 | Michael Finch (D) 63.8% Rep. Matt MacPherson (R) 36.2% |
| House District 27 | Liz Oates (D) 37.5% Rep. Anthony Loubet (R) 37.5% |
| House District 36 | Blake Townsend (D) 54.1% Rep. Jim Dunnigan (R) 45.9% |
| House District 38 (open) | Sergio Sotelo (unaffiliated) 56.6% Chris McConnehey (R) 43.4% |
| House District 39 | Drew Howells (D) 59.9% Rep. Ken Ivory (R) 40.1% |
| House District 42 | Iva Williams (D) 55.8% Rep. Clint Okerlund (R) 44.2% |
| House District 43 | Ofa Matagi (D) 55.4% Rep. Steve Eliason (R) 44.6% |
| House District 44 | Jess Birtcher (D) 53.6% Rep. Jordan Teuscher (R) 46.4% |
| House District 48 (open) | Benyde Walker (D) 51.4% Jake Hunsaker (R) 48.6% |
| House District 59 (open) | Celeste T. Johnson (D) 50.1% Luke Searle (R) 49.9% |
| House District 62 | David Chappell (D) 54% Rep. Norm Thurston (R) 46% |
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