- State Rep. Karianne Lisonbee received 61.5% of the vote at the GOP nominating convention.
- U.S. Rep. Blake Moore got 33.7% but will go to the June primary because he gathered signatures.
- Top Utah lawmakers disagreed about the value of Moore's congressional leadership positions.
Utah Rep. Blake Moore, the fifth-ranked Republican in the U.S. House of Representatives, lost a party nomination vote among precinct delegates on Saturday but will continue to a primary election in June.
Delegates backed state Rep. Karianne Lisonbee, R-Syracuse, who targeted Moore’s support for a redistricting commission and dismissed his leadership positions as Congress has overseen a soaring national debt.
Lisonbee won 61.5% of the vote among the 1,000 delegates representing party precincts across the 2nd Congressional District in northern Utah. Moore got 33.7% and former National Guardsman Colton Hatch got 4.8%.
Moore had already qualified for the primary ballot by submitting over 7,000 verified voter signatures. Lisonbee opted to forgo the signature option, relying on delegates to give her at least 40% of the vote to qualify.
Utah’s unique caucus-convention system often penalizes incumbents. In 2024, Moore lost by more than 10 percentage points at convention against a political newcomer. However, he later won by more than 40 points in the primary.
Saturday’s vote reflected the deep anti-establishment sentiment of the GOP grassroots, even toward a candidate endorsed by President Donald Trump and responsible for some of the president’s biggest legislative wins.
Moore appeals to authority
Delegates welcomed Moore to the stage, and sent him off, with a chorus of boos. But the two-term lawmaker plowed ahead with prepared remarks, tallying his list of high profile accomplishments since entering office in 2021.
Moore highlighted his status as one of the only Utahns to ever serve in congressional leadership and the first Utahn to sit on the powerful Ways and Means Committee, which is the primary force behind tax policy in Washington, D.C.
Moore’s time on the committee coincided with the passage of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which made Trump’s 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, including expanded business tax breaks and child tax credits, permanent.
Moore played a role in shaping the tax cuts, and was also credited with drafting the legislation that became the "Trump Accounts” — a government-funded savings account for kids — earning Moore a shoutout from Trump.
“I passed more individual pieces of legislation than anyone else in what will be President Trump’s most significant legislative achievement,” Moore said.
As the first ever Utahn elected to House GOP leadership, Moore said he is in the best position to continue supporting Utah’s Sentinel nuclear launch silo sites and Hill Air Force Base’s F-35 maintenance programs.
Moore’s reelection campaign has also become a referendum on Utah’s new court-ordered congressional district map, tapping into frustration among some state lawmakers over Moore’s support for Utah’s redistricting commission.
One of Moore’s greatest advocates in the state, Senate President Stuart Adams, R-Layton, did not address this line of attack, but instead reiterated how Moore’s leadership role has delivered huge dividends for northern Utah.
Adams told the Deseret News he expects Moore to be elected as chair of the House Budget Committee in the fall. Moore has been a member of the committee since 2022 but has not announced a bid for committee chair.
“Leadership means everything, you’re making all the decisions,” Adams said. “When you’re the budget chair, everything runs through you. And that gives you the ability to be able to negotiate with other legislators. So it is everything for northern Utah.”
Support split by redistricting
However, Adams’ counterpart at the state Legislature gave an opposite prediction of Moore’s prospects.
Utah House Speaker Mike Schultz, R-Hooper, told the Deseret News that he believes Moore’s involvement with the group behind Utah’s redistricting law could potentially have negative implications for his leadership positions.
Before running for elected office, Moore served as one of the original Republican chairs of Better Boundaries, and as one of the original signatories on the application to gather signatures to put Proposition 4 on the ballot.
Following a yearslong legal battle, advocacy groups successfully sued the state to toss out its 2021 map and to install one of their own design that created a Democratic-leaning district in Salt Lake County.
Schultz joined Lisonbee in blaming Moore for the original initiative that allowed groups to sue if they think lawmakers do not meet anti-gerrymandering rules. This law could determine the midterms and Moore’s future, Schultz said.
“That cost Utah a Republican seat, that’s going to possibly cost the majority in Washington, D.C.,” Schultz said. “That’ll be used against him very heavily in a leadership race. So I don’t see Blake winning another leadership race.”
Met with big cheers, Lisonbee capitalized on her convention-only status and fiery condemnations of Moore. She lambasted her opponent for working “with Democrats to turn a reliably red Utah congressional seat deep blue.”
Lisonbee focused the remainder of her remarks on her record of spending cuts, immigration law enforcement, and culture war victories on banning elective abortions, restricting transgender access and affirming gun rights.
The nation has continued on an “unsustainable trajectory” with the national debt increasing by more than $10 trillion, and unfunded Social Security obligations doubling while Moore has been in office, Lisonbee said.
“That is not leadership. Fraud and corruption have seeped into our institutions. Government is too big, costs too much and has gone far beyond its purpose,” Lisonbee said. “Now, more than ever, we need real leadership.”