The Case for Utah: Part 2 - Utah’s Political Shake Up
How Utah’s Young Voters Are Redefining the Game
Listen up class, today we are digging into Utah’s demographic shifts and what that means for a state that’s been used to coasting on autopilot. Welcome to the next chapter in our series: “The Case for Utah”.
For decades, the state’s politics were as thrilling as watching paint dry—bright red, and not much changing. But that’s all shifting, and fast. Between a Supreme Court decision forcing competitive districts and a population boom that's bringing in fresh (read: less conservative) faces, Utah’s deep-red grip on politics is slipping. Why? A collision of a younger, more progressive-leaning population and a state Republican Party that’s holding onto MAGA like it’s another Avengers movie—something that peaked a while ago and just isn’t hitting the same. Spoiler alert: we all have franchise fatigue.
A Younger, Less Conservative Population
Utah might still have that good ol' conservative brand, but underneath, it’s starting to bubble with energy. With the youngest median age in the nation, a tidal wave of fresh voters is about to crash into the state’s politics—and newsflash: they aren’t all signing up for GOP newsletters. The youth, especially in places like Salt Lake City, Ogden, and (brace yourselves) Provo, are shifting left.
And sure, some of this is just the natural generational divide. Younger voters tend to lean left on social issues like LGBTQ+ rights, immigration, and climate change. But it’s not just the homegrown youth who are shaking things up. People are moving to Utah, lured by the great outdoors and the booming tech scene and the greatest snow on earth (and the least traffic to get there - but shhhh don’t tell your friends). Utah’s population has grown by 15% in the last decade, and this new influx isn’t here to join the Utah GOP. These transplants are bringing their ideas along with their Patagonia jackets, and they’re adding a lot of purple to Utah’s once-crimson political palette, quietly transforming local politics.
Oh, and let’s talk about Provo for a second—home to BYU and the “most conservative city” title just 20 years ago. How conservative, you ask? It swung 52 points from George W. Bush in 2004 to Joe freakin' Biden in 2020. Biden flipped four precincts near BYU, and we’re expecting Kamala to flip more in November.
The MAGA Meltdown: Utah’s Republican Party in Flux
While Utah’s younger population is slowly trending purple, the Republican Party here is taking a full swan dive into MAGA waters. Remember when Utah Republicans were all about “small government” and “individual liberty”? Ah, good times. Now, they’re too busy trying to out-Trump each other.
Even Mike Lee—once a Trump skeptic who literally voted for Evan McMullin in 2016—has bent the knee to the MAGA king. And under the leadership of state GOP chair Robert Axson, the party has gone full “rig the rules” mode, scrapping vote-by-mail for an in-person caucus that was such a disaster, even the DMV was like, “we could’ve done that better.” The result? Trump barely squeaked out 56% of the vote in one of the reddest states in America. For a guy who claims to be the most popular Republican since Lincoln, that’s a pretty embarrassing performance.
And don’t get us started on Spencer Cox. In the last year, Spencer’s transformation from Mr. Moderate to full-blow MAGA has been on display for all of America (especially after that lovely photo op at Arlington National Cemetery). While he went out across the nation preaching his faux moderation with the “disagree better” campaign, back home he told a very different story. He started the year off signing a sweeping litany of ALEC-approved bills, including one that banned books, prohibited DEI in public institutions, and a trans bathroom ban. Oh! And then, almost immediately after once again claiming he'd write someone in, he went ahead and endorsed Trump. The irony of Cox supporting a write-in campaign given the Phil Lyman of it all is astounding—but we digress.
Utah Republicans used to pride themselves on being a bit different—more libertarian, less authoritarian (recommended reading from Elevate’s book club: American Nations by Colin Woodard). Now they’re all-in on Trump, leaning so far into the MAGA rhetoric that longtime conservative voters are starting to feel like they’ve been left behind. The party’s once-cherished values of decentralization and personal liberty? Kicked to the curb in favor of populism, nationalism, and culture war nonsense.
A State in Political Identity Crisis: The Transition Is Real
The tension between Utah’s shifting demographics and its MAGA-obsessed Republican Party is reaching a boiling point. Younger voters, and even some of the old guard, are looking at this mess and saying, “Nah, I’m good.” That doesn’t mean they’re all rushing to the Democrats—let’s not get too crazy—but they’re certainly more open to alternatives.
Enter Evan McMullin: the “Goldilocks” candidate for Utah conservatives who couldn’t stand Trump’s authoritarianism but also weren’t about to buy a Bernie Sanders bumper sticker. McMullin, who ran for Senate as an independent in 2022, managed to pull in a significant chunk of disaffected Republican voters. Sure, he didn’t win, but the fact that he didn’t completely crash and burn says something about how desperate Utahns are for a change.
Of course, the McMullin gambit had its own share of issues, including pissing off a lot of rank-and-file Democrats. Still, Mike Lee only ended up getting 53% of the vote, a far cry from the 68% he received in 2016. And while McMullin didn’t win, he did inspire quite a few candidates in competitive districts to run as independents in 2024, including Patrick Belmont, Monica Manual, Jessica Wignal, and Lori Spruance. We’ll have to see how that ends up turning out this year…
So there you have it—Utah’s rapidly growing and younger, more progressive population is starting to clash with the old GOP guard, and the shifts are only getting more dramatic. Next up, we’ll explore how Utah’s new district maps will shake up the political landscape even more. In the meantime, if you want to help us recruit and train the candidates who can turn this battleground potential into reality, consider donating to Elevate PAC today—because change doesn’t happen without a fight.
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