John Curtis wins the GOP primary for US Senate in Utah, AP projects

SALT LAKE CITY — Utah Rep. John Curtis handily won Utah’s race for U.S. Senate Tuesday evening, according to the Associated Press, which called the race for the congressman 24 minutes after polls closed in the Beehive State.

The race to replace Sen. Mitt Romney is the highest profile of the night, though Rep. John Curtis is widely seen as the frontrunner over Riverton Mayor Trent Staggs, former Utah House Speaker Brad Wilson and businessman Jason Walton.

Around 100 Curtis supporters gathered at a Provo park in 90-degree plus heat, many donning campaign-branded straw hats and baseball jerseys, as they waited for the first round of ballot counts to roll in.

The mood turned celebratory after the first round of results showed up online, showing Curtis with close to 50% of the vote in the four-person race.

Corey Norman, Curtis’ chief of staff, read aloud the results at about 8:15 p.m. showing Curtis with 53.5% to Staggs’ 26.43%. Wilson and Walton trailed with 14.15% and 6.13%

In an emotional victory speech following the race being called, Curtis said there are several stressful and difficult moments in a campaign: debating, filing to run, and “figuring out how to say thank you is just very difficult.”

“You can’t say thank you without first saying ‘thank you’ to my family,” he said, flanked by his wife, Sue Snarr, and several children and grandchildren. “In those moments when I was trying to decide if I was going to do this, the loudest voices came from my family, and the loudest voice in my family was Sue. So, thank you, I love you all. I have the best family in the world.”

Please read Bridger Beal-Cvetko’s entire article at KSL.com.