President Donald Trump’s return to the White House coincided with a crisis in public perception toward Democrats.
Even as Trump sets the agenda for national politics, Democratic Party approval has plummeted and remains at record lows.
But Utah Democrats have never been more excited.
A Nov. 10 court ruling, which sought to counter an alleged gerrymander by creating a deeply Democratic congressional seat in Salt Lake County, could give Utah Democrats a historic opportunity to define themselves on the national stage.
Democratic candidates who have announced a campaign for the 1st Congressional District told the Deseret News the upcoming primary election will be a game-changer for the party in what is otherwise a solidly Republican state. So far, no Republican has entered the race.
Republican officials reacted with outrage to the ruling which rejected a map approved by lawmakers in favor of one drawn by nonprofit groups suing the state. GOP leaders vowed to appeal the decision, leaving the future of the 1st District in the hands of Utah’s Supreme Court.
If the GOP’s effort to appeal the state’s yearslong redistricting case does not shift electoral boundaries before November, the seat could offer Democrats an unprecedented chance to attract national dollars, build a leadership bench and reach new voters.
But those hoping to do more than represent Salt Lake City’s island of blue amid a sea of red still face the major obstacle of finding a unique Utah identity that sets them apart from a brand that professional politicos and party insiders believe needs a dramatic overhaul.
“They cannot simply toe the line for whatever national Democrats are doing on every issue, and then expect the majority of Utahns in the state to vote for them,” said Jeremy Pope, a professor of political science at Brigham Young University.
The emerging divide among Utah Democrats is over whether the party should emphasize the state’s unique cultural heritage, with a consensus-building tone, or whether it should be as bold on the issues, and in its opposition to Trump, as the 1st District is blue.
National brand woes
The popularity of both major political parties in the United States has steadily declined over the past 30 years. But favorable views toward the Democratic Party took a steep nosedive in the fall of 2024, reaching record lows it has yet to recover from.
The latest Economist/YouGov poll conducted in September found that just 33% of U.S. adults have a favorable opinion of the Democratic Party; 60% — including one-fourth of adults who lean Democratic — have an unfavorable view of the party.
A Pew Research survey conducted in September found that over the past four years, the share of Democrats who say they feel frustrated with their own party has spiked by 20 percentage points, from just under half in 2021 to over two-thirds in 2025.
Steve Pierce, a Democratic strategist and senior director at the PR firm Bully Pulpit International, said poll results reveal a long-term failure by Democrats to provide a precise vision of what the party stands for, instead of just what it stands against.
“It does require fundamentally rethinking how Democrats communicate,” Pierce told the Deseret News. “I don’t think people have a clear sense of the positive, affirmative, values-based narrative — what it means to be a Democrat."
Under President Joe Biden, the Democratic Party invested trillions of dollars in public infrastructure and green energy subsidies, all while passing bipartisan gun control, attempting to erase billions in student loans and establishing pro-LGBTQ federal policies.
But Pierce said missteps in marketing these policies under a cohesive theme have allowed Republican opponents to define Democrats by their extremes, as the party of transgender surgeries, open borders and defunding the police.
Democrats must do better at shaping the values voters think of when they see the “D” on their ballot, according to Pierce. This has less to do with specific policies — which Pierce said few Americans prioritize — and more to do with a message that “America works best when it works for all.”
The highest profile candidate vying to give Utah a Democratic voice in Washington, D.C., former Rep. Ben McAdams, said the party brand suffers when leaders appear “to care about the extremes rather than solving problems.”
As the most recent Democrat to represent Utah in Congress, McAdams vowed to “be loud” in his opposition to Trump, who he said is undermining “the foundations of our democracy.” But McAdams said he is committed to “work with anyone, anywhere to get things done.”
“If we profess to stand up for the little guy, we have to be focused on delivering results that are going to make life better,” McAdams told the Deseret News. “A zinger against Donald Trump doesn’t put food on the table.”
The CD1 opportunity
Utah’s 1st District Democratic primary will be unlike any in recent decades.
Over the past four election cycles, voters in the district supported Democrats by a 17-point margin. In 2024, Kamala Harris won by 23 points in the district. And it is home to 41% of the state’s actively registered Democrats and 15% of the state’s registered Republicans.
This could hardly be more different from the state as a whole: In 2024, Utahns backed Trump with over 59% of the vote. An October Deseret News/Hinckley Institute of Politics poll found 51% of Utah voters approved of Trump’s performance. A Democrat has not been elected statewide for three decades.
Whereas McAdams narrowly claimed victory in 2018 to represent a Republican-leaning district, Democratic candidates in 2026 will be more likely to battle over the primary-voting base than to vie for broad, general election appeal. Candidates are already gearing up for this kind of battle.
“It’s the most exciting time we’ve seen since I’ve been a Utah Democrat,” said state Sen. Nate Blouin, D-Salt Lake City, who announced his congressional bid in November. “It’s an opportunity we’ve never had before with this new congressional district.”
The district lends itself to running on progressive issues like “Medicare for all,” expanded child care and protesting Trump’s deportation tactics, Blouin told the Deseret News. Blouin said he is ready to “go into the ICE facility here in Utah” on “Day 1” if he is elected.
Facing Trump head on might be exactly what Democratic voters are looking for. The Pew survey found that 41% of Democratic-leaning adults said their largest source of frustration with the Democratic Party is it is “not fighting hard enough against Trump.”
The way to go “toe-to-toe with the powers that be” is to fixate on lowering costs, increasing wages and ensuring abortion access, according to former state Sen. Derek Kitchen, who, like Blouin, has positioned himself as running to the left of McAdams.
While Democratic pundits debate whether New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani — a self-described democratic socialist — is the future of the party, Kitchen said Democrats’ 2025 victories in Virginia, New Jersey and New York City all share one thing in common.
“Our party needs to be a party that focuses so clearly, so relentlessly on delivering a higher quality of life for the people that we have enough room for a divergence of opinions,” Kitchen told the Deseret News. “But that being said, we can’t compromise (on abortion).”
Abortion was singled out by Kitchen, Blouin and other candidates, in thinly veiled stabs at McAdams. McAdams stated his strong personal opposition to abortion in a 2020 ad, though he supported Roe v. Wade at the time, saying the decision to abort a baby should be left to a woman and her doctor.
Brian King, the newly elected chair of the Utah Democratic Party, said he does not want the 1st District race to devolve into a series of purity tests, including on the topic of abortion.
“You’re not going to get excommunicated from the party” for being a pro-life Democrat, he told the Deseret News.
Unique Utah values
There are “Utah values” the 1st District champion will get a chance to reflect “from the perspective of a Democrat,” King said — values such as the inclusion and consensus of the Utah Way, and an emphasis on problem-solving over performance politics.
If Democrats want to take advantage of this moment, they cannot abandon the state’s distinct culture, said former state Senate minority leader Scott Howell, who now runs a political consulting firm.
To make a difference, candidates must differentiate themselves from the national party, he said.
“We’re fiscally responsible, we’re community-focused, we don’t get caught up in the ideological battles,” Howell told the Deseret News. “This isn’t about shifting left or right. It’s about shifting toward Utah. It really is focusing back on the principles of our state.”
Eric Biggart, the executive director of Utah Votes and chair of the LDS Democrats caucus, told the Deseret News there is a natural constituency in Utah for candidates that prioritize character, family affordability and protecting the most vulnerable people in society.
Biggart points to indicators showing that firmly Republican Utah is not as eager to support Trump’s GOP as other red states. While Utah gave Trump his largest winning margin in the state in 2024, a majority of Utah counties actually saw support for Trump shrink compared to 2020, bucking national trends.
Despite low turnout, Utah’s GOP presidential preference poll gave Trump his smallest victory over Nikki Haley of any red state. And Utah Republicans were more skeptical of Trump’s use of executive authority than Republicans nationwide, according to a Deseret News/Hinckley Institute of Politics poll.
The stakes couldn’t be higher for Democrats trying to make inroads with Utah’s largely conservative, religious population, according to Gabi Finlayson, the co-founder of one of the state’s largest, and fastest growing Democratic consulting firms, Elevate Strategies.
“We’re not like the national Democrats,” Finlayson told the Deseret News. “We have an opportunity to really show the rest of the state who Utah Democrats are ... and we’re not like the national portrayal of far-left Democrats that will ultimately serve to our detriment.”
Mamdani-type candidates are “not really what fits for our state,” Finlayson said. The 1st District race will show Utahns that Utah Democrats are not “trying to push these radical socialist ideas,” they are trying to break up the state’s “political monopoly” that gets in the way of practical solutions, Finlayson said.
The Democratic primary outcome could have serious implications for the future existence of the 1st Congressional District, Finlayson said, because the state Republican Party will use the victor as “a boogeyman” to convince voters to repeal the state’s redistricting law.
The Utah GOP is gathering signatures to give Utahns a second chance to vote on whether legislators should be constrained by an independent redistricting commission, or given sole authority over district maps, which some lawmakers believe is granted in the state Constitution.
Can the blue island grow?
Others believe Utah’s redistricting saga paved the way for a true leftist turn in Utah politics among Democrats.
A recent Deseret News/Hinckley Institute of Politics poll found that 51% of Utah Democrats said they have a favorable view of socialism, 65% approved of Mamdani and 71% favored Democratic socialism.
Adrienne Gailey, the co-chair of the Salt Lake chapter of Democratic Socialists of America, said these results demonstrate that policies that “support trans people” and “defund the police” are actually “the exact things that draw leftists to the Democratic Party.”
“We’re trying to get the working class, everyday Utahns, aware that their rights matter as a community,” Gailey told the Deseret News. “This district seat has the potential to bring that conversation to a wider stage and get people more interested in class politics and class education.”
The most recent candidate to declare intentions to run for the seat, Liban Mohamed, 27, announced his campaign on Monday with a viral Mamdani-esque video, highlighting his background, and focusing on government interventions to make life more affordable.
In an interview with the Deseret News, Mohamed said he left his career in the tech industry because the 1st District offers Utah its first “true chance to elect a progressive” that can give voices from minority communities a place “at the table.”
“A great candidate that’s able to galvanize this opportunity to represent a perspective that has never had an opportunity on the national stage from the state of Utah, I believe will create an entire movement,” Mohamed said. “And I believe that I can be the person that makes a movement of the moment.”
State Sen. Kathleen Riebe, D-Cottonwood Heights, said there is a balance to be struck by Utah Democrats. Coming from a long line of law enforcement, Riebe said Democrats can be the reasonable face of both order and compassion, with a focus on making the state safer, and more “family friendly.”
As the first to officially declare her candidacy, Riebe said she sees the 1st District as an opportunity to make Utah “not a fly-over state” when it comes to national Democratic fundraising, and, most importantly, it gives the mostly Democratic, urban core of the state a congressional voice for the first time.
One of the latest candidates to throw her hat in the ring, Salt Lake City Council member Eva Lopez Chavez, said the 1st District winner will set the tone on resisting extremism, addressing water shortages and advancing compassionate immigration policy — which is the reason she entered the race.
Lopez Chavez recognizes that no issue has hurt Democrats’ credibility more than the open-border immigration policies under Biden. But she believes Utah Democrats can change the national discussion in a way that bolsters the Beehive State values of family and pioneer entrepreneurship.
“There’s nothing more important today facing our country than the issues related to immigration,” Lopez Chavez said. “The opportunity is to resolve and to bring peace and unity on this issue so that we can get more people working and less people frightened about their families being deported. I’d love to be that voice.”