Utah Primary races, predictions for Caucus Night

Time now for Inside Utah Politics with Lindsay Ayers.

Well, welcome on in today.

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Joining me today, Taylor Morgan, Erin Ryder.

Hi guys.

Hello.

Hi.

Erin, it's been a minute since you've been here.

I know.

I know.

We've had some cross wires.

You've been sick.

You've been out of town.

But I'm glad you're back.

Holidays and illnesses and the legislative session.

It's just a thing.

It's a whole thing.

Taylor's here like every week.

So no one cares.

Take it easy.

Old news.

We love you both.

We're so glad you're here.

Peter's off today.

So we'll thank Laura in advance for pushing our buttons for us.

Let's dive into our topics.

The congressional candidate filings are getting solidified as we speak.

Hold on.

Can I, before we get there, I think I really, I feel compelled just to publicly thank everyone

that has come out of the woodwork to encourage me to run for office.

Just countless friends and supporters and viewers.

I have heard it.

And I've so great for you.

I just, it's not the right time right now for me and for my family.

But thank you so much for your encouragement.

Isn't that what you tell your candidates as a political strategist?

You're like, here's how you float a congressional run.

Not really because it's just ridiculous.

Like we can see through it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, there's been some of that this week.

It happens.

That's for sure.

The latest filings to jump in.

Nate Bluen has jumped in officially in the CD one race.

We also know that my Kennedy is filing in CD three.

He marks the last incumbent to really check his name off the official list,

which is you got to go fill out the paperwork in person at the Lieutenant Governor's office.

So we already knew all these folks were running.

Wait, isn't he running in CD four?

Sorry.

Did I say three?

Yeah.

The four.

The four.

The four.

Kennedy and four.

The last of three.

Thank you.

I knew.

I knew.

I knew.

I knew.

I knew.

I knew that.

But it came out differently.

Are you saying you toss a new congressional map is incredibly confusing?

I just got to get it straight.

Exactly.

So what do you guys make of these filings?

Are you expecting any fireworks?

We have about 24 hours left until the candidate filing period closes.

I don't think.

I think the players who are in the races are probably in the races, right?

With the exception of Representative Kennedy, who's filing today, we understand.

I mean, you could have additional people file over the next day,

but in terms of serious challenges and contenders, I think the ballots are probably said.

Taylor?

Well, I think, of course, the first congressional district is the one that is most new and exciting,

just in terms of craziness.

I think we're seeing so many candidates file there.

I think we have officially eight Democrats or seven.

Keep talking.

I'll count them up.

Hopefully it doesn't take too long.

But that's where we have the most competition among the most new candidates in the Democratic Party Vine for office.

Like I said earlier this week, because Democrats are going to hold an open primary,

this is essentially, I believe, Ben McAdams is race to lose.

Of course, it will depend on how crowded a ballot we get in that Democratic primary,

whether he has one challenger or two, maybe three challengers.

That is yet to be determined based on convention outcomes, other candidates doing signatures.

So a lot of that is up in the air.

Again, better boundaries, no more like Ben's best boundaries, especially with an open primary.

It is his seat to lose at this point.

You come with a new name for these maps every week and I love it.

I'm here for it.

What did you call it the other day?

Busted boundaries.

So I've got a few other, you know, be words.

Taylor's only good for bumper stickers.

Thank you.

Yeah.

Okay, so I'm only counting five Democrats thus far,

but I haven't seen Avalopas Chavez file yet, and there might be a few others.

So it might take up to seven or eight when all is said and done.

Aaron, what do you make of the primaries coming up?

Taylor's been harping on the show often about how uncompetitive the general election will be here under these districts.

What do you make of the primary races though?

Will we see massive fights?

Do you think this is anyone's guess?

Are the incumbents not safe here?

Well, I think we're going to see some interesting things.

It is, I speak from personal experience.

It is challenging to unseat an incumbent, certainly.

And they're going to be based on who the challengers are in these primary races.

I think you're going to see a lot of people show up to support the incumbents in some of these races.

That doesn't mean that these are going to be easy primaries.

And I think whether regardless of how the numbers come out at the end of the day,

even if the incumbents have a relatively easy time winning,

we're going to see some pretty significant fights.

Yeah.

And I think particularly I am worried about Celeste Malloy's ability to win re-election in the new congressional district three.

I think because these districts are so polarized due to the outcomes,

essentially R plus 40 or more in every district,

that means the differential among Republican voters versus other voters.

And so with a disparity like that, with that much polarization,

we are going to have a much larger swath of extreme radical Republican voters in all of these congressional districts.

Now, I think a really great point is that Phil Lyman is not just running for the new CD3,

but he's also gathering signatures because Phil recognizes this district is so polarized that he in fact has the best shot of winning,

not just a convention, but in a primary against Congresswoman Malloy.

And that I think should be concerning for all of us.

I think Representative Malloy is one of the hardest working members of Congress in the country, former staffer.

I think she's been highly effective there, but I, again, I'm really concerned about her re-election.

I think Blake Moore will be okay up north.

He is from the Ogden area originally.

We're seeing something interesting coming from Challenger, Carrie Ann Lisenbeer's supporters.

They're not quite willing to choose Carrie Ann over Blake directly.

Rather, their passive aggressively encouraging Blake to be running in CD1

is the sacrificial lamb there so that we can support Carrie Ann in CD2.

That's not even possible anymore.

It's simply not.

It is.

Look, it's a two-faced, weak political move trying to support both candidates rather than just choosing one over the other.

I don't think they're doing any good by playing politics and walking the fence in that sense.

I think Carrie Ann Lisenbeer has a lot to offer, right?

As a legislator, she was effective.

She was very conservative.

I would argue even further right than Congressman Moore.

However, Blake is also in leadership on ways and means.

He's an up-and-comer in Congress.

Donald Trump called him out specifically as the tall guy right there.

That's all you need to do in an election.

That's right.

He's getting things done for his district and for Utah.

I think he will be okay.

He'll have the resources.

But listen, these maps are so polarized and extreme.

Anything can happen.

In this CD3 race, going back to that for just a second,

I had a brief conversation with Congressman Maloy.

I asked her directly, you know, was Phil Lyman's jumping in the race?

Did that change your calculation on gathering signatures?

She hesitated for a minute but said there were a lot of factors that went into gathering signatures.

I want your guys take on that.

It was kind of a last minute decision because she had been behind the scenes kind of really thinking

she would just go that convention route.

She is elected now because of the caucus convention.

But she kind of reversed course on that.

It's the first time she's ever going to gather signatures.

What do you make of that move?

Do you believe her when she says there were a lot of factors at play?

I do.

I also know for a fact that she changed her mind and decided to collect signatures

because of Phil Lyman's declaration that he would be collecting signatures.

She didn't go so far as to say that.

Sure.

And I respect that and I can understand why she wouldn't.

But I know that that is the case.

I know that that's what happened.

And that's fine.

There's no scandal there.

That's not controversial.

That is simply being a smart candidate taking every viable pathway to get on the ballot.

We know Congresswoman Molly has worked incredibly hard over the years to get elected and reelected

by the delegates.

So she is really focused on winning them over and rightly so.

So we'll see how she does.

I think Phil Lyman has lost a lot of credibility with everyone including delegates.

Yeah.

I think that's part of the calculus.

And that's part of why she's probably saying there are multiple things going on here.

Because we're in an off-cycle year.

And so in an off-cycle year, you're going to see a different, you know,

you're going to see the electorate shift a little bit farther to the right,

both in the caucus convention process and in the primary election itself.

However, the primary election does tend to moderate the decisions that are made in the caucus at convention.

And two years ago, when Celeste Malloy was running, right,

we had that whole scenario where Mike Lee was backing a candidate that was challenging her.

And that was a difficult primary for her to get through in the convention process.

So now, with Phil Lyman here, knowing that the convention is going to shift to the right,

I mean, who knows?

Again, to Taylor's point, there are a lot of delegates that are upset with Phil Lyman at this point.

I don't know that Phil Lyman has the base.

He maybe thinks he has even amongst delegates at convention.

But, and you have this district is sort of Phil Lyman's area with Southeast Utah

and Celeste Malloy's area with St. George, you know, kind of Southern Utah.

So they cross over in different ways.

And I think there's just a huge question mark of what that dynamic is going to do,

both in the convention and in the primary.

So it doesn't surprise me that both of them are gathering signatures.

Although I do think it is perfectly valid to call out the utter and absolute hypocrisy

that Phil Lyman is gathering signatures in any way,

and any delegate should feel free to challenge him on that to the end of time for backtracking on that.

Yeah, if you're in a political attorney out there looking for work and for billable hours,

I would just get to know Phil Lyman right now because he's never lost an election.

I don't know that he's ever conceded an election.

And you know, no matter what, he will be suing over this race at some point sooner or later.

And not stopping the suing.

We will watch and see how it plays out.

Okay, speaking of the primary system and the getting on the ballot system.

Caucus and convention night coming out.

Well, it's caucus night coming up on March 17.

That's Tuesday of next week.

We should disclose here, Taylor, that you're known as the signature guy because you ran and you are the executive director.

Count my vote.

I resent that.

The voting Taylor.

Am I wrong?

No, you're not exact.

I would just say signatures were around before count my vote.

Okay, but I am the executive director of count my vote.

I work and run count my vote, put action committee.

So that's in a totally appropriate disclosure.

And you're also the reason we have the dual path to the ballot, right?

That being said, I've also been a precinct chair, a state delegate, a county delegate, a precinct vice chair.

I really love caucus and I cannot wait to go to my caucus meeting for the fight and draper 28.

On Tuesday night, really looking forward to it.

And in those paper ballots in the gym had a school and get them all counted.

No, it's a great time.

We have fun.

To that point, go to caucus.

Please do, go to caucus.

This is how the system is supposed to work in a lot of ways.

And when people show up, it actually works really well.

We saw this a couple of years ago.

County convention in Salt Lake County two years ago was fascinating in terms of the dynamics to watch because you had a lot of people show up in 2024.

Because the Republican Party closed the presidential primary race, you could only vote in the presidential primary if you went to caucus night.

And a lot of people showed up that don't normally show up.

What that did is it meant that the convention outcomes in almost every race, except for like one, matched the primary races.

And that is exactly how this is supposed to work, right?

If you don't like the signature gathering process, we need more people to show up at convention and at caucus night because that's really how you make this work.

Can I let people in on a fact here?

Yeah.

And I'm not sure if everyone is aware that the caucus system is dominated by crazy people, okay?

And so if you are normal, if you are normal or think you're normal, then please go to caucus.

And yes, I know you're going to have to spend some time with all of the weird people in your neighborhood that you never want to talk politics with.

But guess what, if you aren't at the table, you are on the menu, if you don't show up, you are missing out on an opportunity to shape your party's future.

So please, I know it's the worst.

I know it's a Tuesday night.

We all have better things to do, but just go and make it fun.

Maybe buy some pizza.

You guys have made a wonderful pitch for attending caucus night, but what do you think has changed?

You're welcome.

What do you think has changed in the last year or two since our last caucus night?

Do you think the party has made the system better?

Do you think we are moving towards getting more people there?

I know they tried the preference poll two years ago, which maybe turned out more people, but they had a whole bunch of logistical problems with being overwhelmed by the system.

And there wasn't enough technology to count all the votes.

And there were just questions over all of that.

So what are your expectations for the turnout?

I mean, they have said that the technology should be better this time around, and they shouldn't have the registration and the checking problems that existed two years ago.

Whether or not that's true remains to be seen.

There were some challenges a couple years ago where they took a system that was sort of built for Salt Lake County and pushed it out to the state before it was ready for it.

So I don't know.

We'll see logistically how things work this year.

I think it's still pretty safe to expect that this is going to take some time.

This is not going to be a one hour, you know, you need to plan your evening to be there.

But, you know, that being said, right?

Like this is an opportunity to gather with your neighbors and talk politics and figure out who you want to represent you at convention when these people go to elect candidates.

Yeah. I want to give the party some credit if I can.

At least the Republican Party.

To be fair, I have not looked at the state Democratic Party's website or looked at their caucus tools or how to participate in that.

So I can't speak to it.

But on the Republican side of things, I've been really impressed with the State Republican Party's caucus registration tool on the website.

I was able to pre-register for caucus.

I was able to identify if I wanted to run for an office, provide a candidate statement ahead of time, able to sign up to volunteer.

And not just find out the general location is in the school where my caucus meeting will be held, but actually the specific classroom.

And so I think the party deserves a lot of credit for what they're doing right now to get people to caucus to inform them.

And I hope that the party's active organizing around their Prop 4 repil initiative.

I hope that has given voters a reason to be involved with the party to show up.

And conversely, on the Democratic side of things, I think voters have every reason right now to go to caucus.

And I hope that they're paying attention and I hope they participate.

So just for the lay person who doesn't know this caucus process, you show up on Tuesday night and what are you going to do when you're there?

What's the point of going?

So when you go, what you're doing is you're electing delegates who will represent your neighborhood at convention.

And you're going to represent different kinds of delegates.

You're representing county delegates who are going to go to county convention.

County convention is going is where all of the county specific delegates are.

So that's going to be a lot of your legislative candidates.

It's going to be your county candidates, some of your school board candidates.

Those folks are going to be a county convention.

You're also going to elect delegates for state convention, which is going to handle your federal races and any races that cross county lines.

So at that, at caucus night, that's when you meet as a neighborhood is a precinct.

And you elect the people who are representing your neighborhood to go.

And you can run to be a delegate.

Yes, both Taylor and I have been delegates before.

Do you have to sign up in advance to run?

You can, but you don't have to.

Yeah, usually when you gather together in your precinct, you talk it out.

People who want to run for a delegate, you know, can give a little pitch if they want to be a delegate as to why they want to represent the community.

You talk it through as neighbors and you decide who's representing you to make that decision.

It's great.

Show up, pledge allegiance, prayer, maybe.

You know, you complain about the liberal media a little bit.

You hear Alan in the back say some uncomfortable things about why he loves President Trump.

And you move on, do some paper balloting kind of stuff.

Maybe, you know, argue a bit, but not too much.

Put it in a vanilla envelope and walk it somewhere.

Yeah.

And then you pretend it was all, you know, secure and then you walk away.

It's a great night.

It's a lot of fun.

Sounds like a lot of fun.

Hopefully this is really inspired.

I truly do believe in the process and theory.

I believe it could be great.

The problem is it just breaks down because people not enough people attend is the problem with caucus.

And so I want to be part of the solution to that.

I think it could work really well if it really did reflect the voters in the parties.

Well, we do have the dual path.

That's why we have two paths, right?

Because we can do this one.

And then, you know, people can still gather signatures and have those assurances if the caucus system doesn't work for them.

So, all right.

Let's switch gears to a national topic.

We're going to kind of take this not serious.

Oh, here we go.

Apparently, President Donald Trump requires his cabinet members to wear matching shoes.

Laura, I'm going to ask you to Google really fast.

Trump's cabinet shoes, if you can, and by the time we're done discussing this.

So, I just, I don't think this is news.

I think it's funny.

I think it's silly.

But I'm sorry.

A U.S. president is an egotistical narcissist.

Shocker, right?

I mean, breaking news.

Is this one more narcissistic in your mind than I thought?

I would argue that perhaps President, well, hmm.

I don't want to go down this path.

I hesitate to defend President Trump in this as because let's just say he is maybe more of a conspicuous.

A more of a conspicuous, ostentatious narcissist than most.

But I would point out that many presidents throughout history have done similar things

in terms of loyalty tests required a tire.

I mean, FDR wore a cape and required his cabinet members to wear matching shoes.

We can see the shoes.

I mean, Teddy Roosevelt required his cabinet to box him regardless of experience or fitness.

I mean, presidents do weird things because presidents are kind of crazy people.

Okay, so you can see what you're looking at on the screen.

If you're not watching, if you're listening in podcast form,

this is Marco Rubio wearing the shoes.

These are apparently $145 shoes that Trump like.

Hey, what kind?

Do we know what kind of shoes they are?

There is a brand name, but I didn't recognize it.

Yes, but if you look closely, it wasn't like Prada or any of that.

You have more shoes.

I don't want to buy shoes over there.

I choose Amazon because I make a reporter sell $140 is not expensive for a pair of dress shoes.

Especially when they spend like what 90 million on like shrimp and.

Absolutely.

You know, they're all wearing a two to $5,000 suit.

I just the funniest part of this whole story to me is that he's just randomly guessing their sizes.

There's no effort put into making sure they have the right size of shoe.

Like he's just completely guessing and then handing it to them.

And they've got to walk around in shoes that don't actually fit.

And I just think that's the funniest part of the whole story.

Does it say anything about the cabinet that they are agreeing to wear the shoes?

I don't know, they have a choice.

Do they?

I don't know.

If he hands you the shoes like, you know, I don't know.

It's a free pair of nice dress shoes.

What are you complaining about?

Why wouldn't you wear those?

Why wouldn't you wear those?

I mean, they're not terrible looking.

They look like a pair of discount foreshimes.

Right?

Something.

Yeah, they're not even unique.

They're just like the brand.

Oh, is it?

Yeah, I nailed it.

Yeah, you could find those at Nordstrom Rack probably for 80 bucks.

You could see the gap in between the blue sock and the back of the shoe there.

I mean, listen, you just wear them when you're around President Trump.

And then you take them off when you get back home.

I do that every Christmas, or I did for my grandparents.

Now my parents, I mean, we all do something like that, don't we?

We're at the forefront.

The problem is that when you wear them around the President,

you end up in photographs like this.

And these follow you for the rest of your life.

So if Marco Rubio wants to run for President in 2028,

guess what?

Now he's got the water glass and he's got the shoes.

And then the Trump cabinet is going to follow you for the rest of your life.

Well, that's what I mean, right?

Like you, you are constantly going to be followed by this for the rest of your life.

I think they're nice shoes, everybody.

I don't know what the big deal is.

There's no scandal here.

All right.

Okay.

In our final a few minutes, just want to talk about something that happened at the Utah legislature.

B.O.U.

Political Science Professor Adam Brown does a whole host of legislative stats every year.

And I'd invite you to go look at his website.

And our good friends over at KSL wrote up this story about Adam's research

that talked about a lawmaker who voted no on 2026 bills at the session,

54% of the time.

If you're keeping score at home, that's a really high number.

You know, the fewest, the next closest person was half of that.

So this is a very frequent voting of no.

Her name is representative Leah Hansen.

She's a brand new freshman lawmaker.

But KSL did talk to her and in the statement that I read, basically,

she kind of evaluates every vote with some principles on, you know,

does, is this a role of government?

Is this, you know, going to expand the role of government that I don't necessarily support?

So she said she didn't have time to read all the bills.

And that was sort of the reason for her no vote.

What do you guys make of that?

Is this common for me to vote no?

What do you think?

My wife votes no on 94%.

Yeah, she's got veto power over everything.

Yeah, I think this 54% doesn't seem that.

I mean, no, in all seriousness, interesting approach by this lawmaker.

I honestly can't decide.

I'm conflicted on this because her explanation, at least my understanding of what she said,

was that she voted no when she wasn't able to thoroughly read and understand a piece of legislation.

And so on one hand, I get that, but on the other hand,

she's telling us she's not doing her job.

And if you cannot read the legislation,

and I know there's a ton of legislation,

there's a lot of substitutes and amendments, and it all happens very quickly.

But I'm sorry, in that seat, you have one job.

Your job is to read those bills no matter how many of them there are,

and then cast an informed vote.

Voting no simply because you couldn't read it all is not an informed vote.

That's an empty seat, in my opinion.

I'd rather have AI in there reading the bills and taking a vote.

Well, and I just want to add, too, that I set in on a number of committees

where she voted no in committee for the bills that were being heard in committee.

I think one of the reasons you have the committees is to break down the challenge

of how many bills there are, so that in the committees,

the committees can vet the bills more thoroughly before they go to the floor for floor discussion.

Otherwise, you just have floor debates on everything.

And you sort of lie on your colleagues to tell you, is this a good bill?

So if she's not even reading the bills that are in her committee,

where she's there in committee, and I heard her in committees say,

I haven't read these bills, so I'm going to vote no.

Well, like Taylor said, then what are you doing there?

That's literally your job.

And what about the interim?

What about over the interim?

Even as a new freshman member of the legislature,

she would have had the interim to become familiar with a large percentage

of the legislation that would then be considered in the session.

Again, I don't think this is a valid excuse.

Does she get any credit for the principles that she has of making sure that her votes

really espoused to those principles of the limited role of government

or making sure this is...

You can abstain.

Sure.

abstain.

You don't have to vote no if that's your principle.

I believe it's mistaken to begin with.

But the better choice here would be to abstain.

Because if you're not familiar with the bill,

and it's a good bill, a no vote actually hurts all of us, right?

And so just abstain from the vote if that's the case.

So again, I think this is disappointing behavior.

If I live in her district, I'm really frustrated

with that kind of representation or lack of representation.

Interesting.

Yeah.

All right, we'll have to leave it there for today

because we are out of time.

Taylor Morgan, Aaron Ryder.

Thanks for joining us today.

Thanks.

We always appreciate your opinions.

Inside Utah politics, he airs at 8 a.m. at 4 p.m.

This Sunday on ABC4.

President Stewart Adams will join us.

As we'll leave on Mohamed, he's one of those candidates

in the CD1 race, so invite you to watch there

and tell your friends and lawmakers about us

because we're a good time.

Don't caucus and have a good time.

There you go.

And then tell us your stories.

Yes.

Participate in the process.

We will see you next time.