John Swallow defeated Sean Reyes in the Republican primary for Utah Attorney General last night. Swallow is the current Chief Deputy Attorney General and will face Weber County Attorney Dee Smith in the general election.
The race took an ugly turn when ads attacking Reyes’ background aired in the weeks leading up to the primary. Reyes’ campaign in turn issued a rarely successful cease and desist order to remove the ads from television. Despite the negative campaigning and lost election, Reyes explained how he felt about the last two weeks.
"It's sad that the last couple of weeks have been hijacked by these super PAC attack ads. But you know we're still very positive about everything," Reyes said.
The campaign was a first for Reyes, but he says the negative campaigning that occurred in the weeks leading up to the primary was not something unexpected. He plans to go ahead with a defamation lawsuit filed against an out-of-state Super PAC that funded some of the negative ads.
Swallow defeated Reyes by garnering just over 68 percent of the vote. He spoke at the Little America Hotel after Reyes conceded and said that the negative ads from both candidates were products of other sources.
"The campaign was influenced, I think on both sides, by out-of-state or out-of-campaign Super PACs," Swallow said.
The general election for will be held on November 6th of this year.