It’s less than a month until candidates running for Congress in Utah must make their bids official and file for a congressional district. The only problem: boundary lines are still not finalized as the political parties await a decision from the state’s Supreme Court.
Since implementing a new congressional map last year that would put at least one of the current Republican-held districts in contention, Utah has attracted national attention as a solidly red state that could hand Democrats a major victory — perhaps even the House majority — in November. The map has undergone several legal challenges and is still under litigation as the state’s highest court and a federal court weigh decisions.
This puts Utah incumbents and the Democratic challengers looking to flip a seat for the first time since 2018 in a unique position. The candidates must sell themselves to voters without really knowing where the district lines will be drawn.
“These maps aren’t only slightly different, they’re drastically different,” Rep. Celeste Maloy, who is running for reelection in Utah but has not yet declared a district, told the Deseret News in an interview. “So when you’re deciding where to spend your campaign dollars and how to spend your campaigning time, it’s almost impossible to make those calls right now.”
That’s just one of the challenges defining the 2026 midterms in Utah, making it an election cycle like no other.
In conversations with members of the current delegation and a majority of the Democratic primary candidates for Utah’s proposed 1st District, here’s what they told the Deseret News about how they’re approaching their November races.
Incumbents unsure where they are running
Since the former map drawn by the state Legislature was thrown out by District Judge Dianna Gibson last August and she chose entirely different congressional districts, the four incumbent Republicans have been thrust into new boundaries that could force a reshuffle of sorts if the map stands.
The delegation has been mum on where they plan to run for reelection, telling the Deseret News repeatedly over the last few months they would not make any announcements until a decision is final.
But the four Republicans are in constant communication with each other behind the scenes to strategize a game plan for how they’ll run when the arena is set.
“The reality that we’re dealing with in the federal delegation is that these maps are very drastically different, and you have to run very drastically different races for the different maps,” Maloy said. “And we’re on what, the third map that we’ve seen in six months? So we’re all just learning to roll with the punches and keep adjusting our sails.”
Maloy acknowledged the uncertainty has caused frustration for herself and her campaign team as they don’t know where to focus their resources. That makes it difficult for hosting campaign events and knowing which constituents to target in their outreach efforts.
“It’s been frustrating for me, for my campaign team, for everybody, because we should be out doing a lot of campaign events right now,” Maloy said. “I’ve been fundraising, making sure as soon as we’re ready to go, we have all the resources we need, and we can hit the ground running.”
In the meantime, Maloy has focused her messaging on what the Republican majorities in Congress have accomplished over the last year as well as educating voters on the current political landscape of the redistricting process.
Other incumbents echoed similar strategies. Rep. Mike Kennedy, who represents the current 3rd Congressional District, told the Deseret News that although the boundaries are still under debate, the “focus does not change.”
“No matter what the final map looks like, we will continue advancing common sense solutions that make life more affordable, secure the border, and strengthen our country,” Kennedy said. “Campaigns are about showing up, listening, and putting forward a clear message. As a doctor and a legislator, I learned that listening comes first and that we can solve even our biggest challenges when we work together. I am focused on making life easier for Utah families and delivering results that will have a positive impact for generations to come.”
Democratic opponents don’t know which incumbent they are challenging
Democrats, on the other hand, have the opposite problem. The Democratic hopefuls running for the redrawn 1st District are relying on a judicial decision that keeps those lines intact to boost their chances of a victory.
The district, if upheld, would heavily favor the Democratic candidate and is considered “solid Democratic,” according to the nonpartisan Cook Political Report. The seat would be entirely within Salt Lake County and one that Kamala Harris would have won by 24 points in the 2024 election.
But while underdog candidates looking to flip a seat usually focus their efforts on defeating the sitting incumbent, that has not been the case for these Democrats who so far don’t know which lawmaker they would face in November.
Rep. Blake Moore, R-Utah, currently represents the state’s first district, but those lines have changed drastically with the new map — meaning the incumbent Republican could opt for another boundary that encompasses more of his current district. As a result, Democrats are not yet sure who they’re vying to unseat.
“It’s certainly confusing for the voters who just don’t know exactly what the districts will look like and whether they’re going to be in the district. And then, you know, there’s the question about who I’m going to be running against,” former Rep. Ben McAdams, who is running for the new 1st District, told the Deseret News in an interview. “People want to know who the incumbent is and if it’s somebody that they may like and so, we don’t have that answer.”
While that’s raised all sorts of unique challenges, many of the Democrats say it’s easy to overcome. After all, they argue, the four incumbents rarely break from one another or the Republican Party at large when it comes to voting on legislation.
For the most part, Utah’s delegation typically sticks together and votes along party lines. Democrats say that gives them an advantage when it comes to battling a shadow incumbent.
“All of them are the same person, you know. So it doesn’t really matter who it is,” state Sen. Kathleen Riebe, who was the first Democrat to jump into the race, said in an interview. “It’s so lopsided that we don’t even know who our candidate is. They haven’t even decided who they want to put in this seat.”
Riebe said that uncertainty on the Republican side has become “like a rally cry” for Democratic voters as they watch the GOP incumbents slow-walk campaign decisions while also spearheading legal challenges against the map.
Incumbent Republicans join the legal fight
While the state Legislature appeals the latest congressional map put in place by Gibson, Maloy and Rep. Burgess Owens have joined local leaders in filing a federal lawsuit alleging the boundaries violate the Elections Clause of the U.S. Constitution.
That’s added a whole other dynamic in the legal fight to settle Utah’s maps as incumbents such as Maloy say it’s an effort to speed up the timeline so candidates can decide on a district to run for reelection.
“What the lawsuit does is try to bring an end to the uncertainty. I’ve been in the uncertainty for a lot longer than I’ve been in the lawsuit, but the lawsuit is an attempt to get answers to questions that I think the state needs answers to,” Maloy said. “We won’t really know where we’re running until we have those answers.”
But Democrats are bullish about their chances, with several candidates telling the Deseret News they expect the map with the deep-blue district will survive.
“The maps are set and as we saw in the recent case in California, federal courts are not interested in telling states how to draw their districts,” James Sonneman, senior campaign adviser to state Sen. Nate Blouin, who is running as a progressive, said in a statement.
Federal judges pointed out the unprecedented nature of a judge choosing a congressional map during arguments in the case on Wednesday. Decisions are expected from the Utah Supreme Court and the federal court by Monday, the deadline to switch to 2021 electoral boundaries before the state’s candidate filing period for U.S. House seats.
Meanwhile, McAdams himself has gotten involved with the legal fight after filing an amicus brief on Tuesday seeking to provide “on-the-ground facts” about how changing the district lines this late into the election cycle would cause “real-world disruption and voter confusion.”
The brief does not insert McAdams into the lawsuit filed by Maloy and Owens, but it establishes him as an outside voice expressing support for the newest congressional map.
Competing signature-gathering efforts confuse voters
The pending lawsuits deal solely with the congressional maps for the 2026 midterm elections. But in the background, there is another fight to ensure this kind of battle doesn’t happen again.
And it’s a fight that has gotten the attention of national Republicans, including the president and his closest allies.
State Republicans have launched an effort to repeal Proposition 4, the anti-gerrymandering law passed in 2018 that was used as the legal basis for Gibson’s decision to throw out Utah’s congressional maps. To do so, the GOP set out to gather signatures to put Prop 4 back on the ballot in November.
Those signatures were submitted over the weekend, and organizers have expressed confidence they gathered enough to place the question before voters. County clerks have 21 days to verify the signatures.
Utah has opportunity to be deciding factor in Washington
If the congressional maps stand or if new boundaries are enacted and establish a competitive district, Utah is poised to become one of the biggest battleground states in the 2026 midterm elections.
With current margins in the House, Democrats only need a net gain of four seats to win back the majority for the first time since 2022. With several contested seats across the country, Utah’s potentially new blue-leaning district could be the key to a Democratic victory — and the candidates in Utah know that.
“I believe this will be the race that turns the tables in Washington,” Riebe said in an interview.
Democratic candidates say the chance for a real competitive district — a dynamic the Beehive State has not seen since McAdams narrowly lost his reelection bid to Owens in 2020 — has revved up voter enthusiasm. And it could pave the way for a more prominent reputation in Congress, state Sen. Derek Kitchen told the Deseret News.
“Given the makeup of Congress, this is, this has the potential to be a very, very significant seat for the House of Representatives,” he said. “I think whether you’re Republican or Democrat in Utah, having a Democratic majority with such a significant seat is going to be good for the whole state.”