Editors Note: This article was originally published in the Sept. 13, 2023 issue of the Chronicle Progress. Some information may be outdated.
Candidate’s rural strategy pays off as she cruises to victory over Edwards, Hough
Congressional candidate Celeste Maloy’s strategy of targeting rural voters during her GOP primary election campaign to replace Rep. Chris Stewart paid off last week when she bested two fellow Republicans to earn her party’s spot in the upcoming general election.
Millard County Republicans, for one, voted overwhelmingly to send her on to the general election—she bested entrepreneur Bruce Hough by almost 600 votes and beat former state legislator and U.S. Senate candidate Becky Edwards by more than 700 votes in the local primary contest, according to unofficial results released by the county clerk’s office last Tuesday.
Unofficial districtwide primary election results showed Maloy earning 35,087 votes to Hough’s 25,742 and Edwards’ 30,118. Though the count remains unofficial, both Hough and Edwards conceded the race to Maloy last week.
Given the GOP’s ironclad grip on the district, Maloy’s ascension to Stewart’s seat is seen by most Utah political observers as nearly a fait accompli now that she has won the Republican primary race.
Maloy’s victory is also a win for rural Utah and greater representation for the state’s rural citizens in Congress—Maloy and Hough vowed to visit and debate within each of the district’s rural counties, including in Millard County, ahead of the election. Edwards did not participate in the debates. Her strategy turned on getting out the urban vote in South Salt Lake and Davis counties, where she indeed prevailed, but ultimately not by enough votes to overcome Maloy’s rural turnout.
Though early results had Edwards seemingly running away with the contest, once rural votes were tabulated, Maloy was ahead by 3 percentage points—though thousands of votes remained uncounted by last Wednesday, Edwards conceded it was not enough to change the projected results.
Maloy registered not just an overwhelming showing in Millard County, but also in Beaver, Garfield, Iron, Kane, Piute, Wayne and Sevier counties. She won Washington County, according to unofficial results, by more than 7,400 votes as well.
Maloy now faces Democratic State Sen. Kathleen Riebe, the Utah Senate’s minority whip who represents Salt Lake County’s District 15, in the Nov. 21 general election.
A number of third party candidates will join Maloy and Riebe on November’s ballot, including two independents, a libertarian, a United Utah Party contender and a candidate fielded by the Constitution Party.
After her victory, Maloy told the Deseret News her goal was to now unite all Republicans ahead of the November contest.
“It’s been a tough primary, and I want to make sure that all of the Republicans who backed someone else in this race know that I’m ready to welcome them with open arms. I want to represent them well and I want everybody to be pulling together going into the general,” she told the newspaper.
Maloy went into the primary after having bested former State House Speaker Greg Hughes at the GOP’s nominating convention held in Delta in June. She entered that contest backed by numerous local politicos as well as Congressman Stewart, in whose office Maloy served most recently as a staffer specializing in public lands issues.
Stewart told the Deseret News after last week’s contest that he was proud of his colleague’s hard-fought victory.
“The reason I supported her was because of her integrity, humility, and intelligence. She will be a wonderful representative for Utah,” the congressman told the Deseret News.
Stewart announced in May he would be leaving office this month to concentrate on his wife’s ongoing health issues. Gov. Spencer Cox, not wanting to wait until the 2024 election to see Stewart’s seat filled, called for a special election to replace the six-term congressman.
Despite the conservative voter numbers likely in her favor, Maloy may still have something of a fight on her hands given the national political climate, one where high-decibel culture war issues trump substantial policy debate and her party’s de facto leader remains a twice-impeached, one-term ex-president facing 91 felony criminal charges in multiple state and federal courts.
Maloy has even publicly stated she will support her party’s presidential nominee next year—even if he’s a convicted felon.
Riebe’s campaign is sure to take note.
Theo Gardner-Puschak, Riebe’s campaign manager, told KSL.com he believed Maloy’s primary win opened a pathway for the Democratic challenger.
He told the news outlet last Thursday that Edwards represented the more moderate Republican choice and perhaps the biggest hindrance to a Riebe victory. But Maloy, he said, will likely continue to tack right to keep the district’s conservative base engaged going into the November election.
The political strategist added that he expects moderates in both parties will be looking for other options, given some of the disaffection some voters had with Stewart’s record—the congressman, while not a full-throated member of the right-wing congressional Freedom Caucus, a la Colorado’s Lauren Boebert or Florida’s Matt Gaetz, still occasionally gave a wink and nod to the GOP’s extreme fringe. He, for example, voted against the results of the 2020 presidential election in Pennsylvania, citing the same spurious allegations of voting irregularities that led to the Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection at the Capitol in Washington, D.C., and that are at the center of two criminal prosecutions naming the GOP’s current 2024 presidential frontrunner.
At the state level, too, Gardner-Puschak told KSL he believes the GOP is coloring far outside the lines of traditional conservatism, further turning off some of the party’s moderates.
“You have a really conservative government here at the state level that is intent on getting into the classroom, getting into health care and meddling with people’s daily lives,” he told the news outlet. “That’s really what we’re running on for this race is a message of freedom, of freedom to make health care decisions, freedom to make sure that our environment isn’t hurting our children on a daily basis with the air quality we have...I think the choice is clear.”
Regardless of November’s outcome, voters won’t have long to decide the fate of whomever wins Stewart’s seat—it will be up for grabs again in 2024 when candidates will vie for a full two-year term.
Kanosh, Hinckley hold primaries
While the race to replace outgoing Congressman Chris Stewart grabbed most of the headlines this primary season, two municipalities in Millard County also held primary races last week.
Kanosh attracted six candidates for two seats on that town’s council. Winners in November will serve a four-year term.
Dan DeGraffenried won the most votes at 107. Joshua Whitaker garnered 90, while Hayden George followed closely with 89. Geraldine Minton rounded out the top four with 73 votes.
These four will face off in the general election.
Hinckley also held a primary election.
Four candidates competed for one seat serving a two-year term.
Gina Tolbert garnered the most votes at 94, closely followed by Chris Mork, who had 92 ballots cast in his favor. They will go on to the general election in November.
An audit of select election ballots is scheduled to be held Thursday at the Millard County Clerk’s Office in Fillmore at 2 p.m. A complete canvass of county primary election votes will be held Sept. 19 at 12 p.m. at the county clerk’s office in Fillmore.
Kanosh Town was scheduled to canvass votes in its municipal primary election this Wednesday, Sept. 13, at 7 p.m.
Hinckley is scheduled to hold a canvass of its municipal primary election on Thursday at 7 p.m.
