Once the first Utah election results were released Tuesday night, it became clear that the Utah Legislature will largely stay the same, both in terms of party control, and in incumbents returning.
Top-of-the-ticket Republicans are all on track to win once final vote tallies are announced. Gov. Spencer Cox and Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson have 56.43% of the vote, with Brian King and Rebekah Cummings at 30.65% and write-in candidate Phil Lyman at 8.2%. Republican Derek Brown has 58.45% of the vote for the open attorney general’s seat, Tina Cannon has 63.12% of the vote for state auditor and Marlo Oaks has 64.30% of the vote for state treasurer.
Rep. John Curtis easily won the open U.S. Senate seat, with 62.79% of the vote. State Rep. Mike Kennedy has 65.10% of the vote, easily winning the open congressional seat in District 3, while incumbents Blake Moore, Burgess Owens and Celeste Maloy easily won their reelections.
The state Legislature, with about 80% of the seats in both the House and Senate in Republican hands, will easily hold on to a supermajority. As of election results Wednesday morning, only one state House seat is looking like it will flip from Republican to Democrat. That seat is House District 30, left vacant when Rep. Judy Weeks-Rohner chose to run for the Utah Senate. Currently, the Democratic candidate, Jake Fitisemanu is ahead of Republican Fred Cox 52.97% to 47.26%.
All incumbent legislators of both parties are currently on track to win reelection. The closest House race is in District 10 in Ogden, where current Democratic incumbent Rosemary Lesser has a 51.38% lead over challenger Jill Koford, who has 48.62%. State Sen. Todd Weiler is at 48.19%, but his next closest competitor of his three challengers, Democrat Aaron Wiley, is more than 16 percentage points behind. Of the 15 Utah Senate seats and 75 House seats up for election this year, 23 had only one candidate.
Utah is also poised to send four new Asian American-Pacific Islanders to the legislature next year: Democrats Hoang Nguyen in House District 23, Fitisemanu in House District 30, Verona Mauga in House District 31, as well as Republican Doug Fiefia in House District 48. They will join Sen. Karen Kwan.
At least one special election is already in the making. Rep. Mike Kennedy is now the Congressman-elect for Congressional District 3 and current Rep. Brady Brammer just won a special election to replace him (contingent upon Kennedy’s win). Now, House District 54 will hold a special election to replace Brammer. If Sen. Mike Lee is pulled into a Trump administration, then his Senate seat would also be filled via special election.
Election results will not become official for two weeks.