After months of campaigning, Gov. Spencer Cox has emerged victorious in the Utah Republican primary. He faced state Rep. Phil Lyman in his quest for a second term as the state’s leader. The Associated Press called the race for Cox at 8:24 p.m.
Cox faced criticism from the right wing of his party throughout the campaign, losing to Lyman at April’s state GOP nominating convention by 35 points. He ultimately advanced to the ballot through a signature-gathering campaign. Cox’s detractors take issue with a growing state budget and say he’s too moderate on LGBTQ+ issues and immigration.
Loading...
But Cox managed to overcome that opposition on Tuesday night.
“I reject the notion that to be strong, you have to be mean,” he told dozens of supporters at an election night party in downtown Salt Lake City. “There is nothing conservative about tearing other people down. There is nothing conservative about destroying the institutions that make us a country.”
Cox did have a strong conservative record to lean on, signing bills like a ban on gender-affirming care for minors and eliminating DEI programs in schools and government agencies.
His ability to shrug off criticism might be linked to how favorably governors are perceived nationally.
“Somehow governors have managed to kind of break away or make themselves different from national politics,” said Brigham Young University political science professor Michael Barber.
“When I see his behavior, I see him very carefully walking this line between being a very conservative Republican, but also doing things to visibly signal that he's, quote unquote ‘different’ Republican.”
According to polling from Morning Consult, governors are much more popular than their respective state’s senators or representatives. Cox was the second most popular governor in 2023, according to those rankings.
In the week before the primary, polling showed Cox with a comfortable lead, but Lyman still had strong support in rural Utah.
Lyman and his running mate Natalie Clawson did carry many smaller counties, but Cox and Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson managed to rack up sizable margins in populous counties like Salt Lake, Utah and Davis.
Despite the Associated Press’ race call for his opponent, Lyman told reporters he did not intend to concede Tuesday night, even if Cox’s lead did not shrink.
In contrast to the persona Lyman has embraced on social media, Cox has distanced himself from the style and rhetoric of former President Donald Trump. When asked in February if he would support the presumptive 2024 GOP nominee, he said he intended to write in a candidate and added that both Republicans and Democrats were “making a huge mistake” with who they nominated for president this year.
In his election night remarks, he made a point of telling supporters that the attacks he weathered in the months leading up to the primary were not “from the right,” but rather from a growing populist movement that has dominated Republican politics in recent years.
“This is something different,” Cox said. “But yes, negative campaigning works or people wouldn't do it. It doesn't mean it's good. It's not good for your soul. It's not good for our country.”
While Utah has not elected a Democrat to statewide office since the late Attorney General Jan Graham in 1996, Cox’s victory signals to Barber that Utah Republicans “are just a little bit different than Republicans nationally” — something that was seen with Rep. John Curtis’ win in the GOP primary for U.S. Senate.
“We've got a lot of data suggesting that they're just not really into Donald Trump. And I think a lot of these things are a kind of not explicit all the time, but implicit rejection of Trump and Trumpism.”
While Cox faces a national Republican Party that is squarely behind Trump, he still insists that Utah is different.
“I think [Utah is] the last bastion of hope for the rest of the country when it comes to Republicanism that is inspirational, that is forward thinking, that cares about solving problems and not tearing down,” he said. “That's the difference.”
Cox will face Democratic state Rep. Brian King in November’s general election.
