As Republicans charge forward with their national gerrymandering gambit, Democrats are rushing to take advantage of an unexpected gift in Utah.
All of Utah’s congressional seats are held by Republicans, and the minority party has begun strategizing how to seize a seat in the Salt Lake City metro area — a blue corner of a deep-red state — following a judge’s orders this week for a new congressional map. President Donald Trump, aggressively pushing his party to redraw maps to maintain their slim House majority next year, immediately slammed the ruling.
Should a competitive seat emerge from the state legislature’s required remapping, former Rep. Ben McAdams, a conservative Democrat, would seriously consider entering the race. He has begun phoning donors to gauge interest, according to two people with direct knowledge of his thinking. Other names circulating within Democratic circles include state Sen. Nate Blouin. And some of the state’s Democratic donors say they are eager to back a candidate who would break Republicans’ grip on the state.
Meanwhile Utah Republican Party Chair Robert Axson said he’s had conversations with the White House since the ruling about their shared concerns around the “legislative process being undermined, and courts, rather than the people’s voice, weighing in on determining these maps through the legislative process.”
The legal curveball comes amid a national redistricting battle the GOP has been dominating, with its attempted five-seat pickup in Texas and White House-backed plans for redrawing maps in Indiana and Missouri. And it offers Democrats a slight boost in the national arms race that will determine whether they will regain any power in the midterms next year.
A court hearing is scheduled for Friday in the case that found Utah Republicans unlawfully bypassed voter-approved safeguards against partisan gerrymandering while creating the current map. That hearing will likely reveal how they plan to delay implementation of the ruling until after the midterms. Meanwhile, GOP leaders in the state legislature announced Thursday they will “attempt to redistrict under these unprecedented constraints.”
Democrats’ best hope of regaining power in Washington next year is through the House — increasing pressure on the party to respond to Republicans’ attempt to protect their majority by carving out seats across the country. But Democrats are hamstrung by independent redistricting commissioners and state constitutions, such that even a single seat in Utah would prove meaningful for the struggling party.
Monday’s decision from District Court Judge Dianna Gibson resulted from a lawsuit challenging the legality of the map adopted in 2021, which argues that when Republicans in the state legislature unlawfully ignored recommendations from an independent redistricting commission by cracking Salt Lake City into four districts. Its timing – on the heels of Texas and California engaging in tit-for-tat gerrymandering, and other GOP states following suit – thrusts Utah into the pitched national redistricting war.
“We’ve now finally got this decision years later that conspicuously comes during the conversation around what Texas has done, and that makes it super interesting and very relevant,” said Utah state Sen. Nate Blouin, a Democrat.
The judge found legislators improperly repealed a voter-backed measure that required independent oversight of redistricting and prohibited partisan gerrymandering. She ordered the legislature to submit a new map for her approval within 30 days. The lawmakers are set to convene a special session Sept. 15.
Democrats and aligned groups are gearing up for the possibility of a protracted legal fight and potential delays from the legislature in adoption of a new map. Elizabeth Rasmussen, executive director of anti-gerrymandering group Better Boundaries, said that “whatever the legislature decides to do next, we’re ready to continue to fight for fair maps.”
GOP legislative leaders indicated they will attempt to preserve the current maps’ goal of having districts that represent “both urban and rural voices,” implying that any new map may dilute Democratic voters.
“This race has the potential of of doing exactly the opposite of what you’re seeing in in Texas and California: to take partisan gerrymandering and partisan interests out of the election and get the power back to the voters,” said McAdams, the last Democrat to represent Utah in Congress until he was gerrymandered out of his district in 2021. “[This is] an opportunity, really, for the voters to choose the type of person they want to have represent them, instead of having it as a foregone conclusion.”
Utah Republicans have cast the decision as judicial overreach, a view Trump echoed by calling the ruling “absolutely unconstitutional” and pledging to do “everything possible” to protect the state’s four Republican House members.
State Sen. Scott Sandall, a Republican who chaired the recent redistricting process, called the decision “an attack from the left” and said the judge has “thrown redistricting into chaos.” He added he’s “positive that some kind of delay could be sought. That’s within the purview of the legislature to try to get a stay.”
Former Utah Gov. Gary Herbert, a Republican who appointed Gibson to the bench in 2018, dismissed Trump’s comments as “hyperbole” and called it wrong to “politicize” the judiciary, noting “it should not matter whether you’re a Democrat, Republican, conservative, liberal, it should not matter one iota.”
Any Democratic candidate will receive support from a surprisingly robust donor class composed of executives of Utah’s tech giants and startups who enjoy the state’s business-friendly climate. The business hub, dubbed “Silicon Slopes,” counts Adobe, eBay and Microsoft among the companies with major offices in Utah.
Recently, a group of progressive donors formed the Utah Donor Collaborative to unite Democratic donors and deliver targeted legislative wins throughout the state.
“We’ve got an infrastructure now that is a real positive,” said Jonathan Ruga, a major Democratic donor. “When new people come in that do have a moderate or a left-leaning ideology, I think they’re more apt to participate.”
Politics
