SALT LAKE CITY — Jan Garbett, who briefly ran for Congress in 2018 as a member of the new United Utah Party and for lieutenant governor as a Democrat two years earlier, said Friday she’s running for governor as a Republican to give voters like her who don’t support GOP President Donald Trump a choice.
Garbett, who co-founded Garbett Homes with her husband more than 30 years ago, said she was “all set” to make another run against Rep. Chris Stewart, R-Utah, in the 2nd Congressional District, this time as a Republican, after dropping out of that race in 2018 to help with the family business.
But Garbett said she changed her mind after hearing that all of the six Republicans running for governor backed the president during their first debate at the Silicon Slopes Tech Summit at the Salt Palace Convention Center on Jan. 31. GOP Gov. Gary Herbert is not seeking reelection after more than a decade in office.
Trump turned out to be the issue at the debate that united the candidates, Lt. Gov. Spencer Cox, former Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr., former Utah House Speaker Greg Hughes, Salt Lake County Councilwoman Aimee Winder Newton, former Utah GOP Chairman Thomas Wright and businessman Jeff Burningham.
“I am running because people have a right to have a choice,” Garbett said. “Every single candidate has aligned himself with a president that I cannot align myself with. I think there are other people in Utah that cannot align themselves with those values, yet they have all these gubernatorial candidates saying, ‘Oh, I support Donald Trump.’”
Garbett said Utah doesn’t need Trump.
“I think we can be our own governing force in this state,” she said. “We can be self-reliant. We don’t need to be Trump-reliant.”
Four years ago, Garbett said she voted for Democrat Hillary Clinton over Trump and independent conservative Evan McMullin, whom she believed didn’t have a chance to win. She said she has not decided who she’s supporting for president this year.
“We were all trapped in the last election. We all felt that dissonance. ... I had to make a judgment call on who I felt I could vote for,” Garbett said when asked if her vote for Clinton could hurt her with GOP voters. “That’s the same attitude I’m bringing to the governor’s race. We need to have options.”
That was the reasoning behind her past party switches, Garbett said, even though her “Republican values have always been consistent.” She said she chose to give the United Utah Party, created to be a home for moderate Republicans and Democrats, because she “felt the Republican Party was getting pulled away from me.”
However, it turned out to be too difficult to explain the third party to voters, Garbett said. In 2016, she was the running mate of Democratic gubernatorial candidate Vaughn Cook, who was defeated for the nomination by Mike Weinholtz at the party’s state convention.
None of that should be an issue with voters, she said, suggesting they look at other elected GOP officials who have be affiliated with other parties, including Rep. John Curtis, R-Utah, who once headed up the Utah County Democratic Party.
“I’ve come to realize that in a state that’s predominantly red, I‘m Republican, too, and my values align with Republicans. I don’t have a hard time going back,” Garbett said, adding there are also “wonderful” people who are Democrats or independents. “I’m just saying, we’re all Utahns.”
Next week, she said she will file with the state to gather voter signatures for a place on the June primary election ballot but has not decided whether she will also compete for the party’s nomination at the state GOP convention in April.
Garbett acknowledged she’s getting a late start, but said she’s hired a company to help her collect the 28,000 signatures needed statewide to qualify for the ballot. She said she did polling on races for both the 2nd District and governor that showed “a stronger path forward running against Chris Stewart.”
But Garbett said it was more important to offer voters another option in the governor’s race.
“There’s a a lot of opportunity and a lot of need here in Utah. To me it’s exciting the things we could do,” she said, such as coming up with a way to add stickers on new homes to give buyers information about energy efficiency, similar to the gas mileage estimates provided on automobiles.
So Garbett is inviting “people to push the reboot button and that’s Jan. We can switch things up.” She said she offers voters “a fresh perspective. They would have somebody that is really committed to education. I’ve been a PTA president” and involved in a family charity, Escalara, started 22 years ago that builds schools in Mexico.
“I’ve been busy being involved,” the 64-year-old said, including raising eight children, helping to run the family business and doing philanthropic work in the United States and Mexico. “I know how to get things done.”