Turnout in the race to replace Congressman Chris Stewart around 15 percent
Aug 29, 2023, 5:00 AM | Updated: Sep 11, 2023, 11:15 am
A mail-in ballot from Salt Lake County (Nick Wyatt, KSL Newsradio)
(Nick Wyatt, KSL Newsradio)
SALT LAKE CITY — Tuesday marks one week until Primary election day in the special election to replace Congressman Chris Stewart, R-Utah. The Office of the Lieutenant Governor is reporting around a 15% voter turnout thus far.
As of Monday afternoon, 31,854 Republicans district-wide have cast ballots, according to numbers provided to KSL NewsRadio by State Director of Elections Ryan Cowley.
On the day ballots were mailed to voters, Aug. 15, the office reported there were around 210,106 registered Republicans in the district.
However, these numbers are fluid and subject to change, since every day until Sept. 5 more voters will be dropping off ballots or registering to vote in person.
This map shows congressional district 2.
Davis County trumping Washington and Iron County turnout
KSL NewsRadio looked closer at four major counties within the district: Davis, Salt Lake, Washington and Iron.
Three of those counties make up the majority of registered Republicans in the district: Davis, Salt Lake, and Washington. Those counties combined have approximately 146 thousand registered Republicans.
Southern Utah could prove to help turnout for candidates like Celeste Maloy and Bruce Hough, who’ve campaigned extensively off of the Wasatch Front. Maloy is from Cedar City. Meanwhile, Becky Edwards is a former state lawmaker who’s represented voters in Davis County.
As of Monday afternoon, Davis County had a 27% turnout — 11,100 voters have cast ballots in the county’s seven CD2 cities, according to data provided by County Clerk, Brian McKenzie.
Those seven cities have around 40,000 total registered Republicans. They include Farmington, Kaysville, Centerville, Bountiful, West Bountiful, Woods Cross, and North Salt Lake.
Compare that to Washington County, where turnout — with a week to go — is less than 1%.
The entirety of Washington County is in CD2, and they have a total of 66, 963 registered Republicans. So far, 5,321 have voted.
“I expect that number to grow quite a bit this week,” said Washington County Clerk Ryan Sullivan.
Washington County includes the metro of St. George, but also has many surrounding counties with rural populations like Ivins, Hurricane, Santa Clara, and Leeds.
Iron County also reports a less than 1% turnout thus far.
Meanwhile, Salt Lake County Clerk Lannie Chapman reports a 16% turnout for CD2 voters in that county.
In addition to Davis, Washington, Iron, and Salt Lake counties, the remainder of CD 2 is made up of the following counties: Beaver, Garfield, Juab, Kane Millard, Piute, Sevier, Tooele, and Wayne.
