Supporters of Gov. Spencer Cox, who is competing in the Republican primary for reelection, and media attend an election night event in Salt Lake City on Tuesday, June 25, 2024. (Photo by Spenser Heaps for Utah News Dispatch)
In what has been one of Utah’s most bitter and heated primary races this year, early election night results posted Tuesday showed Utah Gov. Spencer Cox leading his challenger, Rep. Phil Lyman, 62.65% to 37.35%.
Results will be updated throughout the night.
Cox’s lead in preliminary election night results positions him to defeat Lyman after months of campaigning that exposed and deepened a chasm between two factions of the Utah Republican Party — those who prefer Utah’s traditional style of tempered GOP politics, and those who want a fighter more styled after former President Donald Trump.
Throughout the 2024 campaign season ahead of the presidential election, Trump indeed has been an inescapable influence in red Utah politics — though if Cox’s lead holds, apparently not enough to force change in Utah’s highest statewide office.
The winner of Utah’s GOP primary election will advance to the November general election to compete with Democratic gubernatorial candidate Rep. Brian King and three third-party candidates including Tommy Williams (Independent American), Tom Tomeny (unaffiliated), and J. Robert Latham (Libertarian).
Utah has elected a Republican governor for nearly the last four decades, having not chosen a Democrat since electing Gov. Scott Matheson for two terms from 1977 to 1985.
A test for Utah Republicans: Trump’s influence
This year’s primary was a test for Utah, a state that has a complex and strained past with Trump. In 2016, the highly conservative state only sided with him with 45.5% of the vote, while 21.5% opted for a longshot third-party candidate, Evan McMullin, and 27.5% went with Democrat Hillary Clinton. In 2020, a larger majority voted for Trump (58.13%), while 37.65% went with Joe Biden, but it’s taken longer for Utahns to accept local candidates that align themselves with Trump and his brash, populist rhetoric.
In the 2020 gubernatorial Republican primary, Cox narrowly beat former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman with more than 36% of the vote to Huntsman’s nearly 35%, both far outpacing former House Speaker Greg Hughes, a candidate who portrayed himself as the most conservative and paraded his support for Trump.
This year, Trump-aligned Lyman saw more traction — but still not enough to best Cox, who styled himself as a governor who tries to represent everyone in the state of Utah while also supporting conservative policies.
While Lyman catered more to hard-line MAGA Republicans, promising to more aggressively take on the federal government, Cox has been critical of the former president and the state of the national political landscape. Cox has said he hasn’t voted for Trump or other major presidential candidates since Mitt Romney’s campaign in 2012, opting for write-in candidates instead.
Lyman’s campaign also largely employed an attack strategy, accusing Cox in various ways of not being a true conservative, while Cox advocated for a clean race while parading his National Association of Governor’s “Disagree Better” campaign, meant to discourage hyperpartisanship, polarization, tribalism and political hate.
Utah Rep. Phil Lyman speaks to members of the media after Utah’s gubernatorial GOP primary debate held at the Eccles Broadcast Center in Salt Lake City on Tuesday, June 11, 2024. (Pool photo by Isaac Hale/Deseret News)
Lyman’s strategy worked well with Utah GOP delegates at convention, winning the party nomination with 67.5% of the vote to Cox’s 32.5%. However, Cox also qualified for the primary by gathering signatures under Utah’s dual path to the ballot.
Cox was booed by many of the delegates from the moment he took the stage — to which he smiled, and told his critics it’s not the first time Republican delegates have booed a sitting governor. He pointed to his predecessor and former boss, Gov. Gary Herbert, among others.
Indeed, Utah GOP delegates have a track record of rejecting Republican incumbents who go on to win handily in the primary, and critics and researchers of Utah’s caucus-convention system say delegates have become more extreme ideologically and less representative of the broader Utah Republican Party.
The Cox-Lyman contest, however, showed there’s a significant segment of Utah’s Republican population that is hungry for change, energized by a possible return of Trump to the White House and experiencing growing frustration with dysfunction in Congress. Lyman supporters largely balked at Cox’s “Disagree Better” campaign. What resonated with them more was a candidate portraying himself as a fighter who will go toe-to-toe with political enemies rather than be open to negotiations or compromise.
Cox, on the other hand, sought to characterize what he and other past Utah politicians like to call the “Utah Way” — keeping Utah politicking nice, civil and allowing everyone a seat at the table (though often the Republican-majority Utah Legislature has the final say).
Is the Utah convention system still relevant?
In a post on X the day before the primary, Cox’s campaign circulated a video of former Gov. Gary Herbert who, without naming Lyman, encouraged the “Utah Way” while supporting Cox and denouncing attack campaigning.
“In Utah, we try to do politics differently. We focus on the issues. We disagree respectfully. And we don’t misrepresent other’s positions,” Herbert says in the video. “And we’re skeptical about those who do.”
The same day, Lyman’s campaign posted a picture of Cox toasting with President Joe Biden (which is a traditional gesture of the chair of the National Association of Governors, Cox’s campaign states in a lengthy “misinformation” page on his campaign website), promising Lyman will “stand up for Utahns” and “not be negotiating the terms of our surrender to the woke mob or be in lockstep with the Biden regime.”
Lyman’s campaign also posted a video of Lyman promising to be a “strong governor” to stand up against the federal government and advocate for states’ rights. To Lyman, Utah should be doing more than it already is to fight against federal overreach, especially around public lands, even though Cox’s campaign notes Cox’s administration has sued the federal government more than 60 times to contest “overreach” on public lands.
How do election night results compare to polling?
The day before the primary, Noble Predictive Insights released a poll showing Cox leading Lyman by 13 points (55% to 42%). The poll of 432 likely Republican primary voters in Utah was conducted from June 20-21, and has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.71 percentage points.
In an earlier poll conducted June 4-7 by HarrisX for the Deseret News and the University of Utah’s Hinckley Institute of Politics, Cox had a more commanding lead, supported by 62% of the poll’s 477 registered Republican voters, while Lyman had 25%. That poll had a margin of error of plus or minus 4.5 percentage points, Deseret News reported.
Results for Utah’s other statewide Republican primaries
Though the race for governor was the most heated and high profile, this year’s primary drew Republican candidates in two other races for statewide offices.
Here’s how the races stand, according to election night results:
Attorney general: In the contest to replace outgoing Utah Attorney General Sean Reyes, Derek Brown led with 45.36% of the vote to Rachel Terry’s 36.13% and Frank Mylar’s 18.51%.
The winner will advance to the November election to compete with Libertarian Andrew McCollough, Democrat Rudy Bautista, United Utah candidate Michelle Quist, and unaffiliated candidate Austin Hepworth.
Auditor: To replace outgoing Utah Auditor John Dougall (who ran in the Republican primary for Utah’s 3rd Congressional District), Tina Cannon led with 55.16% of the vote to Weber Clerk/Auditor Ricky Hatch’s 44.84%.
The winner will face Democrat Catherine Voutaz, and Constitution candidate Jeffrey Ostler in the November general election.
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