Utah outlier in presidential race but still shifts red

States across the country, from New York to California, shifted right in last Tuesday's historic general election; the Beehive State was no exception.

Utah voters delivered President-elect Donald Trump his highest vote share ever in the state on Election Day. Republican success extended down the ballot: statewide candidates glided to victory and the Legislature's GOP supermajority maintained its same margin of dominance.

"It was a tough, tough night around the country to be a Democrat on the ballot," said Gabi Finlayson, co-founder of a Utah-based Democratic consulting firm, Elevate Strategies. "I think we need to do some reflection on how we talk about issues and which candidates we're recruiting to run, especially in these competitive districts."

The red wave that moved across the country on Trump's coattails was often most pronounced at the county level. For example, the GOP nominee for president improved his margins by 22 percentage points in the minority-majority Bronx County , New York, compared to 2020; and by 21 percentage points in the 97%-Latino Starr County , Texas — flipping the district for the first time in 128 years.

Graphics showing an overwhelming shift toward Trump since his previous presidential bid went viral following his Nov. 5 political comeback. In the days following the election, CNN calculated that the ratio of counties swinging toward Trump relative to Vice President Kamala Harris was greater than 9:1, and the New York Times estimated that more than 90% of counties shifted in Trump's favor since 2020.

However, Utah, along with some of its western neighbors, was an outlier in this trend.

Did Trump's vote share increase in Utah? Trump increased his winning margin in Utah by just under 1 percentage point in 2024, beating Harris 59.3% to 37.9%, with more than 90% of votes counted, compared to his Utah victory of 58.1% to 37.7% against President Joe Biden in 2020.

While Trump's margin of victory in Utah increased from around 20.5 in 2020 to 21.5 in 2024, this was the smallest increase for Trump of any state in the country except for Washington state.

Utah stands out even more at the county level. Less than 40% of Utah counties shifted toward Trump in 2024. Of these 11 counties, San Juan County saw the largest increase in Trump's winning margin, increasing by 9.5 percentage points compared to 2020, followed by Tooele County, which saw a 2.5 point-boost for Trump.

Trump also saw an increase in support relative to his Democratic opponent in Washington County, of .6 percentage points, and Utah's three blue counties: Salt Lake, Summit and Grand. Positive shifts for Trump in these rapidly growing areas may have contributed to his overall increase across the state compared to 2020.

But 18 Utah counties bucked national trends, shifting in the opposite direction away from Trump.

The largest decreases in Trump's margin of victory occurred in Morgan County — where his winning margin fell by 2.9 percentage points compared to 2020 — and Davis County — where his margin fell by 2.7 points. Utah County saw its relative support of Trump fall by 1.2 points compared to four years before.

While most of Utah's sparsely populated rural counties also saw Trump win by slightly smaller margins in 2024, he still reached or exceeded 80% of the vote total in most of those counties.

"I think that Utah Republicans have always had a complicated relationship with Trump," said state Sen. Todd Weiler, R-Woods Cross, who won reelection this year.

But despite Utah at times showing unique resistance to Trump, Weiler said — pointing to independent presidential candidate Evan McMullin's 21.5% in 2016 — the Beehive State still seemed to follow the national trend in 2024, even if it was at a smaller scale than nearly any other state in the country.

"I think Utah is very similar to the country where as more time goes by, more and more Republicans, and it appears some independents, are embracing Trump," Weiler said. "And maybe it's not because they love Trump, but maybe it's because, you know, it's a binary choice, and they don't like what the other side is offering."

How did GOP perform down ballot? Republicans across Utah easily defeated their Democratic opponents last Tuesday — but did so by a smaller margin than previous election cycles.

Sen.-elect John Curtis outperformed Trump statewide by 3.3 percentage points but beat his Democratic opponent by slightly less than Sen. Mitt Romney did in Utah's last open-Senate-seat election in 2018.

Utah Gov. Spencer Cox underperformed Trump by 3.7 percentage points statewide, with GOP candidate Phil Lyman running as a write-in. Cox's winning margin in 2020 was also several percentage points smaller than GOP candidates in past election cycles. Likewise, candidates for Utah's 1st, 2nd and 3rd congressional districts won by 2-4 points less in 2024 than in 2022.

Republicans' successful night was seen more in the positive trajectory at the state legislative level. Despite unprecedented levels of Democratic fundraising and campaign coordination, the Utah GOP's control of the 29-seat Senate and 75-seat House remained exactly the same.

Although Democrats were able to flip House District 30, where Democratic West Valley City city council member Jake Fitisemanu won the previously red open seat, Republicans ousted Democratic incumbent Rep. Rosemary Lesser in House District 10 in Weber County, where Republican business owner Jill Koford won by a few hundred votes.

In addition to isolating Democratic lawmakers to just representing areas in Salt Lake County, Utah GOP Chair Rob Axson says Republican candidates were also able hold onto former swing seats, like House districts 26 and 27, by larger margins than in 2020, and loosen Democrats' hold on major seats like the Salt Lake County council at-large seat.

"Not only is there not a leftward movement in Utah, there's a rightward movement," Axson said. "It is clear that Utah's supermajority is representative of, and reflective of, Utah and Utahns."

Axson pushed back against claims that Republicans' command of the state Legislature is the result of partisan gerrymandering. If other political parties hope to make inroads among Utah voters, as Trump did with a diverse set of voters across the country, they will need to shift their message to represent a broader demographic than the one they currently reach, Axson said.