Republican Phil Lyman lost Utah’s June GOP primary, but he hasn’t given up the quest against Gov. Spencer Cox.
Instead of conceding, Lyman filed two failed lawsuits to challenge the results. One concerned the validity of the Cox campaign’s signature-gathering effort. The other was an extraordinary petition that asked the Utah Supreme Court to toss Cox and Lt. Gov. Deidere Henderson out of office and get himself placed on the general election ballot.
Then he got everyone talking by appearing in a campaign ad — with a Democrat.
In an ad that appeared to poke fun at Cox’s “Disagree Better” campaign and parody his 2020 viral campaign advert encouraging civility with then-Democratic candidate Chris Peterson, Lyman and current Cox challenger Brian King proclaimed they aligned seamlessly on one thing.
That, and they said this in unison, “Spencer Cox should not be our next governor.”
The ad made by King’s team got tongues wagging, prompted party statements and served as a not-so-subtle bullhorn for a Lyman write-in campaign for governor. It reached a million views on X, formerly Twitter, in just 24 hours.
What is Lyman doing?
Even before the ad, Lyman announced he would conduct a write-in campaign. He hasn’t filed as a write-in candidate yet and must do so 65 days before the election, according to Utah code.
In an interview with KUER, Lyman said he has “loyal grassroots followers” who are “passionate” about pushing a write-in campaign, but he doesn’t “want to spend a bunch of money” on it.
“I don't plan to print more signs. I don't plan to really do anything other than social media and continue to message this [write-in campaign],” he said.
Even though she views him as a “sore loser,” Leah Murray, the director of the Olene S. Walker Institute of Politics & Public Service, doesn’t think his reaction is completely out of the ordinary. She pointed to when U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska won as a write-in candidate in 2010.
“I think people want to win their elections, and when they don't, they get frustrated, and they seek alternate paths to getting into office,” she said. “And they definitely do it when they feel like they have been slighted in some way.”
Murray believes this disgruntled approach is rooted in SB54, which created two pathways onto the primary ballot in 2014. If lawmakers hadn’t approved signature-gathering as a means of ballot access and only went with the candidate who won the party nominating convention, then Lyman would have been the nominee. However, party convention picks didn’t fare well with primary voters this year.
Another thing Lyman is doing is airing the Republican Party’s dirty laundry in front of voters.
Murray and Jim Curry, a political science professor at The University of Utah, both agree that party infighting is normal. Party fractures usually play out publicly during a primary election cycle but go away once a candidate is selected. That’s changed within the last decade, Curry said, like when House Republicans ousted Speaker Kevin McCarthy in an incredibly public manner.
To Curry, Lyman is doing something similar – magnifying the fractures in the party that used to only exist within it.
“The primary is over. The nomination has been captured by Spencer Cox, but Phil Lyman is not willing to sort of back the nominee. He's willing to back himself and continue to campaign against the nominee, even though that person is in his party,” he said. “So that's different. That's a very, not only more open level of intra-party conflict. It's a more prolonged level of intra-party conflict.”
How is Utah politics reacting?
Lyman’s reaction to losing the primary ruffled feathers. But the ad with a Democrat seemed to push Republicans over the edge.
Utah Party Chair Rob Axson condemned Lyman’s ad appearance with King. His statement claimed it “will only benefit Democrat candidates whose extreme policies are out of step with Utahns.”
“Phil does not speak for the Utah Republican Party or most Republicans who want to see this state stay red,” Axson wrote.
Today, UTGOP Chair Rob Axson issued the following statement: pic.twitter.com/kvLKX6SAs9
— UtahGOP (@UtahGOP) August 15, 2024
Another heavweight Republican voice trying to circle the wagons was Sen. Mike Lee. He announced on social media he will be voting for Cox. He said voters “must defeat the Democrats by uniting behind our fellow Republicans.”
Quin Monson, a political science professor at Brigham Young University, said Lyman is “alienating state legislators and others that he would need to do anything in the legislature” if he were to become governor.
“I think he's now become a pariah of sorts.”
GOP lawmakers, like House Speaker Mike Schultz, Rep. Kera Birkeland and Rep. Cheryl Acton, have denounced Lyman’s actions on social media.
Curry believes the reaction from Republicans in the Legislature is to fight off a “nightmare scenario” that would “engender a really larger segment of the voting population to support [Lyman] and not Spencer Cox,” which could split the GOP vote, leading to a Democratic win.
“Part of the purpose of political parties is to coordinate like-minded people, or even semi-like-minded people, to win elections and then pass laws,” he said. “So something that threatens to completely split it is sort of an existential threat to everybody in the coalition who cares about maintaining the coalition for their own purposes, to win their own elections, to pass the policies they want to pass.”
What is the endgame?
Curry, Monson and Murray all foresee Cox winning the general election and don’t anticipate a “nightmare scenario” occurring. If anything, a write-in campaign on Lyman’s part “won’t make a huge difference,” Monson said.
“The group that's going to vote for Lyman as a write-in, they gotta be so motivated that they weren't going to vote for governor anyway.”
Murray wonders if Lyman may have shot himself in the foot by casting doubt on Utah’s election system. Instead of driving people out to vote for him in the election, “voters who are feeling like they don't trust [the system] don't show up to vote.”
“They're not going to show up and then vote for Brian King. They're just not going to show up.”
Additionally, she believes Lyman teased the idea of a write-in campaign too early and all the attention garnered by the ad with King happened too soon in advance of ballots being sent out.
“The strategic thing to do would have been to file the write-in campaign, get things moving, and then maybe do something ridiculous in October,” she said.
