The race remains too close to call, but St. George voters are closer to picking their top three candidates from a field of five contenders in the city council general election.
Preliminary results as of Nov. 24 show incumbents Jimmie Hughes (21.61% of the vote) and Dannielle Larkin (19.88%) are in a position to win reelection. Joining them on the five-member council would be newcomer Steve Kemp (22.18%), a real estate broker who currently chairs the city’s planning commission.
If the results hold, the other two challengers — Brad Bennett (18.19%) and Paula Smith (18.14%) — would fall short.
The final three certified candidates will be elected to four-year terms on the council.
Vince Brown, the director of Utah Tech University’s Institute of Politics, said early turnout numbers appear to be high compared to previous off-year local elections. He said that’s encouraging, but the increase in voter interest also came with an increase in intensity during the campaign.
“You saw louder voices. You saw more hostility between citizens,” Brown said. “Anyone who was paying attention noticed it.”
One example was the wave of vandalized signs for incumbent Dannielle Larkin and hundreds of notes placed on cars around town that tied her to the drag shows that became a hot-button issue over the past two years.
Despite the attacks, Larkin said she remained committed to staying the course and focusing on her platform of improving residents’ quality of life.
“I love this community. I think it's a place worth fighting for,” Larkin said. “I can hold my head high and feel good about the campaign that we ran.”
Negative attacks may be effective in national politics, Brown said, but if Larkin’s standing in the top three holds, it could show how those tactics often don’t have the intended result in local races. He said that’s especially true in communities the size of St. George — where voters may run into candidates at the grocery store or the football game.
“I don't think [voters] react well in municipal elections when it gets so deeply personal as it did against Dannielle Larkin,” Brown said. “I think that tends to backfire.”
Even though this is a nonpartisan election, he said, all the candidates are Republicans. So the division in this St. George race reflects the rifts that are forming within right-leaning politics nationally.
“And those types of disputes, those schisms, those family fights can often be uglier,” Brown said.
While Larkin, Hughes and Kemp largely focused their campaigns on bread-and-butter municipal issues like zoning, parks and traffic, Brown said that Smith and Bennett highlighted “fighting wokeness” and other conservative cultural issues that are often outside the council’s purview.
Both Smith and Bennett championed protecting the region’s Dixie heritage and banning what they’ve termed as adult content from public spaces during the campaign. The most visible example of the latter issue has been the debate over allowing drag shows in the city’s parks.
If the outstanding votes were to push Smith and Bennett into the top three, Brown said, that would likely mean the council would start to put more focus on those types of cultural issues — everything from making St. George a Second Amendment sanctuary city to opposing the new Utah state flag.
“I think [Smith and Bennett winning] would fundamentally change the city council,” Brown said.
Kemp, on the other hand, steered clear of those types of national, social issues altogether, with his “No Nonsense” slogan. The fact he is leading in the preliminary results — even ahead of the two incumbents — has proved that plan successful, Brown said.
“Even if he weren't to win, I think already just being in the lead based on votes counted, that strategy is validated.”
Brown said he’d be cautious about reading too much into the views of St. George voters at large based on the early returns. But he said it doesn’t seem like the results — with both incumbents in line for reelection — show that voters are overly upset with the current city council, despite recent turmoil related to drag shows, public comment and a $625,000 settlement with a former city manager.
Win or lose, Larkin said, the results thus far validate her decision to focus on the issues in front of the council, rather than campaigning negatively against her opponents.
“I think that there was a win for positivity,” Larkin said. “And I think that the outcome will show that, overall, St. George is really a positive and forward-moving city.”
