While Salt Lake County voters have likely selected their next mayor, the race for the new at-large member of the county council remains too close to call.
Democratic county Mayor Jenny Wilson leads her Republican challenger Erin Rider by 15 percentage points in initial returns.
One of the most anticipated local races has been the open Salt Lake County at-large seat. For the first time in 24 years, the state’s most populated county is getting a new at-large councilor. The winner will replace Democratic councilor Jim Bradley, who has served in the position since 2000.
Democrat Natalie Pinkney currently leads Republican Rachelle Morris with a narrow margin of 5 percentage points.
The race’s winner has the potential to change the makeup of the council. As it stands, there are five Republicans and four Democrats on the council. If Morris wins, the council would have a Republican supermajority. If Pinkey wins, the partisan split would likely will remain the same.
Election Day votes are still being processed, said Salt Lake County Clerk Lannie Chapman. As of about 5 p.m. on Nov. 5, Chapman said voter turnout sat around 68%, which was lower than in 2020 where there was “unprecedented turnout” at 90.11%.
“I don't think we're going to see that, but I think we're going to see still hundreds of thousands more ballots,” she said.
Salt Lake County Council race
Pinkney, a current South Salt Lake City councilwoman, remained hopeful after the first round of results went live at the Woodbine Food Hall in Salt Lake City just after 10 p.m. Her lead started to shrink by the next round of vote tallies.
“We just want to keep that gap and we're feeling good,” Pinkney said. “I just feel awesome.”
While people may be fixated on big-ticket races, she said the council race is “a good reminder about how much we can do in our own backyard,” especially with housing, homelessness and “building neighborhood centers and city centers so we connect each other.”
Morris hosted her watch party in downtown Salt Lake City instead of opting for the Utah Republican Party’s event in Draper. A hodgepodge of political affiliations showed up in support.
“You would love to be able to go to sleep tonight in the lead as a Republican, but we're still feeling confident that we're going to win this race,” Morris said.
Bradley, the outgoing Democratic at-large councilor, said the council was lucky to have two “great candidates” vying for the open seat. In the end, though, Bradley cast his ballot for Morris because he believed she was the best person for the job.
To him, Morris ran a “very energetic” campaign and was “understanding of the issues” the county is facing.
“I just saw Rachelle spending more time and having a greater in-depth understanding of how those issues affect people in the county,” he said. “It's all about the people. What's best for them.”
Both candidates have staked their campaigns on similar issues, including homelessness, the county’s nearly $2 billion budget and public safety. They also both supported the county’s more than $500 million public safety bond that seeks to expand the jail complex to build a Justice and Accountability Center. The bond’s future is also a toss-up for now.
Salt Lake County Mayor
Incumbent Jenny Wilson fended off challenger Erin Rider for mayor in a somewhat predictable outcome. This is Wilson’s second mayoral election following her appointment to the position in 2019. She replaced former Mayor Ben McAdams after his congressional win in Utah’s 4th Congressional District.
Rider, a corporate attorney, mostly tried to differentiate herself from Wilson on the budget. She accused Wilson during their only debate of neglecting to use taxpayer dollars to deal with deferred maintenance of county buildings to the point where it’s “cheaper to tear those buildings down or to just buy a new building entirely, than to deal with the maintenance that has been accruing for years.”
Wilson pushed back against Rider’s claims about her budget priorities, stating a Republican majority council has voted to approve the new building proposal despite having the chance to veto it. Wilson also called Rider out for sounding like a “tax and spend liberal” for believing there is enough room in the budget to take care of “every diverged maintenance need.”
