Utah Gov. Spencer Cox said on Tuesday that Democratic candidates, including former Congressman Ben McAdams, are running to the left in a new, deep blue congressional district established by court order.
McAdams ran as a moderate to represent Utah’s Republican-leaning 4th Congressional District from 2019 to 2021. He is now competing against multiple progressive candidates in Salt Lake County’s new 1st Congressional District, which leans Democratic by more than 15 percentage points.
During his monthly PBS press conference, Cox criticized the Nov. 10 judicial ruling that established new congressional boundaries not approved by the Legislature, saying it violated the original intentions of the 2018 Better Boundaries initiative by exacerbating partisan pressures in U.S. House races.
Cox pointed to the campaign of McAdams as an example of how the “political incentives” of highly partisan districts push candidates away from moderate positions toward those held by the fringes of the parties — like New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani, a self-described democratic socialist.
“I mean, Ben McAdams, in the matter of a week, is running a completely different campaign than he’s ever run before,” Cox said during the online-only portion of Tuesday’s broadcast. “I got whiplash watching him jolt from kind of a moderate to ‘Mamdani-land.’ It’s been fascinating to watch.”
Cox did not specify in what way McAdams was running a different campaign. However, some have pointed to McAdams’ apparent change in tone and emphasis on the issue of abortion.
In a 2020 ad, McAdams said “abortion is wrong and I personally oppose it except in the cases of rape, incest and the life of a mother.” Last week, McAdams referred to abortions as “health care” and said if elected, he would vote to “codify Roe and restore a woman’s right to choose.”
In a statement to the Deseret News, McAdams defended the positions he took as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives, while criticizing the Legislature for attempting to work around Proposition 4 in 2021.
“I’ve taken stands I knew would cost me politically, including voting to impeach Trump, because I don’t abandon my values for political points,” McAdams said. “It’s frankly absurd for the governor to lecture anyone about consistency. Especially while he and the supermajority legislature are, once again, trying to undermine the constitution and the will of the people to have a fair election and hold politicians accountable.”
Did Prop 4 make congressional map ‘extreme’?
McAdams is facing an increasingly crowded Democratic primary field to represent the northern part of Salt Lake County, which includes progressive state Sens. Nate Blouin and Kathleen Riebe and former state Sen. Derek Kitchen.
Cox predicted that Utahns, who typically elect Republicans by 20-to-30 percentage-point margins in statewide races, will “not enjoy” the 1st District competition between candidates trying to out-progressive each other, which could lend support to a GOP initiative to repeal Proposition 4, Cox said.
“I’ve talked to lots of people that supported Prop 4, and this is not what they thought they were getting. This is not what they thought they were getting at all,” Cox said.
The Utah Republican Party has decided to take an unorthodox approach to protesting and reversing Proposition 4, which passed by less than 1% in 2018. Party chair Rob Axson has filed a ballot initiative of his own, potentially giving voters a second chance to vote on the redistricting law.
A Deseret News-Hinckley Institute of Politics poll conducted in October found that a plurality of Utah voters continue to support Proposition 4, with 44% of respondents saying they would support a similar proposal again, 20% saying they would oppose it and 36% saying they did not know.
Rep. Blake Moore, a Republican who represents northern Utah, was one of the original signatories on the application to put Proposition 4 on the ballot. He now says, along with Cox, that what started as a bipartisan push to ensure fair maps has now led to reverse gerrymandering in a deep red state.
“What you ended up with now is some of the most extreme districts anywhere,” Cox said on Tuesday. “I don’t think the vast majority of Utahns are going to enjoy that campaign. And I think it’s going to be a lot easier to get the votes necessary to overturn Prop 4.”