Utah Sends Democrat to Congress After Anti-Gerrymander Ballot Initiative

Utah Elects a Democrat to Congress, Ending an 8-Year Redistricting Saga

“In the district you fought to create, the people of Salt Lake County picked their own representative.” That’s how Ben McAdams described his victory Tuesday night, after he trounced Republican Riley Owen with more than 70 percent of the vote, Mother Jones reported. This is the first time in eight years Utah has sent a Democrat to the House, and the win is a direct result of a years-long battle against partisan gerrymandering.

For over two decades, Republicans used their legislative supermajority to draw maps that effectively silenced Democratic voters in and around Salt Lake City. The state was home to one of the most extreme partisan gerrymanders in the country. But in 2018, Utah voters narrowly passed a ballot initiative to create an independent redistricting commission, a change that has finally forced a more competitive political map.

A Victory Built on Fair Maps, Not a Blue Wave

McAdams’ triumph isn’t really about a national Democratic surge. It’s about Utah finally letting voters choose their representatives, not the other way around. For years, the state’s GOP leadership fought the independent redistricting commission tooth and nail, using legislation and litigation to try and kill it. When the courts upheld the fair maps, state Republicans blew up the state’s nonpartisan judicial selection process to undermine the judiciary. They even personally attacked two women on the state supreme court who were part of the unanimous decision to uphold the maps.

Ben McAdams Claims Victory in Utah's 1st Congressional District

“There was, and continues to be, a sense among our [Republican] leadership in particular that an un-gerrymandered outcome was not favorable to their political future,” said Emma Petty Addams, co-execorary director of nonpartisan faith-based Mormon Women for Ethical Government.

“We’re coming for you,” Utah GOP Chair Rob Axson warned the judges during the party’s state nominating convention in April. “Go find a job in the private sector. We don’t want you anymore.”

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McAdams’ win shows the power of this reform, but it may be short-lived.

Republicans will now likely try to undo the current maps in the newly stacked courts, threatening to push the state back into its old pattern of disenfranchisement.

Ben McAdams declares victory in Utah’s 1st Congressional District race

The Candidate Who Replaced Him, and the System That Protected Him

To understand what this election means, you have to understand who McAdams defeated in 2020: Republican Rep. Burgess Owens. Owens, a Fox News commentator and former NFL defensive back, was a deeply controversial figure. Mother Jones reports that his credentials for Congress were slim. He suffered multiple bankruptcies and published a heavily plagiarized book. His ties to Utah were so tenuous that when he announced his run in 2019, he hadn’t lived in the state long and had only registered to vote there in 2014. His only real connection was his adult daughter, whom he put on his campaign payroll.

Owens was such a weak candidate that his tenure might have ended after one term. But in 2020, the legislature redrew his district to give it a 30-point Republican advantage. Once safely in office, Owens governed like a man who didn’t have to worry about reelection. His most notable achievement was introducing a bill to add 10 additional flights to Reagan National Airport, so his children and grandchildren could visit him more often—a move the FAA warned would be unsafe. This decision came under fire after a deadly crash there in January 2025. He also focused on attacking the NFL’s leftward drift and made headlines suggesting Beyonce’s Grammy win was “the closest thing to DEI we’re going to see right now.”

U.S. House District 1 candidate Ben McAdams, D-Utah, embraces volunteers at the Utah Democratic Party’s Election Night — Photo: deseret.com

Despite this track record, Owens was reelected twice, showing the power of gerrymandering.

A More Competitive Utah for the Future

This year, however, the playing field changed dramatically. The Utah supreme court upheld the nonpartisan congressional maps, forcing Owens, 75, to announce his retirement to avoid a brutal primary fight. McAdams, a former congressman and Salt Lake County mayor, ran again. Unlike Owens, who was known for his fiery rhetoric and loyalty to Trump, McAdams is a famously inoffensive politician. Salt Lake Tribune political columnist Robert Gehrke once wrote that his inoffensiveness was “equaled only by white rice.”

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But while he may not be flashy, McAdams knows how to legislate. During his brief two years in Congress from 2018 to 2020, he focused on issues that mattered to Utahans. He successfully inserted language into a defense bill to block Trump’s plans to restart nuclear testing—a critical issue for a state poisoned by radioactive fallout in the 1950s. He also helped pass the Great American Outdoors Act, which allocated billions to repair national parks, including Utah’s five, which generate significant economic activity.

McAdams’ victory wasn’t the only sign of a more competitive Utah. Thanks to the new maps, other Republican incumbents faced much tighter races. Rep. Blake Moore won Utah’s new 2nd District by only eight points, and Rep. Mike Kennedy won the 4th District by seven. Both had won their old solidly Republican districts by at least 30 points in 2024. As Deseret News reported, the results suggest that fairer maps are already making incumbents more responsive to their constituents’ needs.

Utah elects a Democrat to Congress: Ben McAdams speaks on Election Day

McAdams himself framed his mandate in opposition to President Donald Trump in his victory speech. “I know that a lot of you have spent the last 2 years angry,” he said. “Fear will tell you to lock the door and to keep your head down. Hope tells you to open it. The district tonight opened this door, and I promise you I won’t let that hope go to waste.”

Utah voters have shown that they want representation that reflects their communities, not partisan calculations.