We are a week away from ballots being tallied, revealing the outcomes of Utah’s most competitive races — interparty primaries. Many politicos are predicting serious challenges to incumbents. We break down the top races to watch.
Cowley and Pignanelli: State Senate District 7 — (Davis, Morgan) Utah Senate President Stuart Adams is Utah’s greatest cheerleader and never faced a primary, but is now in the fight of his political life. This is the highest-profile legislative race of the year. His opponents — lawyers Stephanie Hollist and Braden Hess — and outside groups are leveraging Adams’ role in the controversial Stratos data center project, but are doing little to tout the merits of the other candidates. If Adams loses, it will be because of a repeal sentiment, not overwhelming support for either of his opponents.
State House District 16 (Davis) — Rep. Trevor Lee has faced tough Republican primaries every cycle. He is accustomed to trading campaign jabs, but recent accusations of business misdeeds forced House leadership to open an investigation into the alleged misconduct. Lee’s opponent is well-known Davis County Commissioner Bob Stevenson. Stevenson’s high name recognition further increases the level of competitiveness.
State Senate District 18 (Salt Lake) — Sen. Dan McCay is facing off against Rep. Doug Fiefia. Attorney McCay has cemented himself as a tax expert on the hill, while young, upstart businessman Fiefia has made headlines with his siege against Big Tech.
State House District 44 (Salt Lake) — Rep. Jordan Teuscher came under fire from labor unions for sponsoring HB267, prompting unions to gather signatures and put the issue to voters. Even after the joint agreement between the legislature and unions removing the issue from the ballot, unions still backed Scott Stephenson to run against the bill sponsor. This will be a proxy fight for unions to test their ability to unseat incumbents they view as unfriendly to their cause.
State Senate District 21 (Utah) — Sen. Brady Brammer is an accomplished lawyer who garnered considerable praise for helping establish a separate court for business issues. Kelly Smith, a Cedar Hills City Councilwoman, leveraged her position to garner support from several local officials. By any metric, Brammer is an effective lawmaker. But Smith is making the usual arguments against an incumbent and promoting greater control by local governments.
District 14 (Salt Lake) — Former prosecutor, now defense attorney, Sen. Stephanie Pitcher’s career is a road map of how Democrats can succeed by espousing lefty principles while passing serious legislation and garnering respect from GOP colleagues. Her opponent, educator Tayler Khater, does not differ in policy positions but benefits from some establishment insiders alleging that Pitcher’s coziness with the Republican leaders is inappropriate.
Outside spending from national and local special-interest groups had totaled millions of dollars. Will this influence have an impact on election outcomes?
Cowley and Pignanelli: Although Congressman Blake Moore has raised significantly more money, there are almost equal infusions of outside PAC cash supporting and opposing him. The far-right connections of the PAC attacking Moore demonstrate the divide within the Republican Party.
All the outside money in the CD1 race has been in support of Ben McAdams. His fellow candidates tried to draw a contrast in the debate and would likely run ads against front-runner McAdams but do not enjoy the deep-pocket backing necessary to do so.
Adams is being attacked by both the far-right and the far-left.
One bizarre instance of outside money is in the Brammer vs. Smith race. Salt Lake City may be only 30 minutes from Utah County, but politically, it couldn’t be farther apart — Kamala Harris won Salt Lake City by double digits, as did Trump in Utah County. Checks & Balances PAC (aka Rule of Law PAC), predominantly funded by Salt Lakers, funded attack pieces against Brammer — and Teuscher. They have also contributed directly to Smith.
While targeted support and opposition from PACs is not novel, the amounts in legislative races are unprecedented. Incumbency, higher name ID, and asymmetrical access to campaign funds is having a significant impact in congressional races but paradoxically are not having the same potency in legislative races this cycle.
This is the first election cycle in which AI is widely used. How has this new technology been deployed, and will it determine how future elections are run?
Cowley and Pignanelli: Adams, especially, has been the target of unflattering AI campaign mailers, but ironically has also used this technology to create videos, punching back against his opponent. Nobody seems offended when AI is used to promote a candidate, but predict the end of humanity when it is used in negative campaigning. Critics should bear in mind that negative campaigning is a political tradition, not attributable to the emergence of AI. If these ads offend you, blame the creator, not the technology.
Expect legislation next year to put guardrails around the use and disclosure of AI in campaign materials.
As two beings sick and afflicted with the political bug, your authors look at nearly all declared candidates’ websites. It is remarkable to see how many first-time candidates clearly used AI. Campaigns are expensive. Unleashing the ability to produce a decent campaign website with just a few well-worded prompts, rather than hiring a costly web developer, makes running for office more attainable. Our advice to candidates: take advantage of this technology, but proofread and make it less generic before publishing.