Utah Democrats see opportunity in November and beyond

PARK CITY, UTAH—In one of the most conservative states in the country, Utah’s Democratic party sees an opportunity to make inroads, starting with an open Senate seat up for grabs come November.

Caroline Gleich, a 38-year-old professional ski mountaineer, is hoping to change state Democrats’ drought in the upper chamber by appealing to Utah’s rapidly changing demographics: The Beehive State is not only the youngest in the country, but its growth is also diversifying its population.

Walking on a trail underneath Utah’s Olympic Park in Park City, where she resides and trains, Gleich told National Journal, “I don't think that Utahans fit as easily into a box as people think we do. Everyone's like, ‘What are you doing in this ruby-red state?’ But I know Utah. I've traveled all over the state. My family's here. My roots are here. And we are not what people think we are. We are much more open-minded, with a global perspective. We are inclusive, warm, and welcoming. And we are, at our core, people who came here as immigrants trying to find a better life for ourselves and our families.”

While a majority of voters in the state identify as Republican, according to Pew Research, Utahans are less likely than GOP voters in other states to succumb to Trumpism.

No polling for the general election has been released yet, as the primaries wrapped up during the last week of June. So far, Gleich’s campaign has raised $389,534 and has spent $303,924, according to Federal Election Commission data. That’s about 10 percent of Curtis’s haul. He’s raised $3,796,591 and spent $3,607,565.

“Utahans don't like Trump. He's a convicted felon who gave hush money to a sex worker. We need better role models, and Curtis votes in line with Trump most of the time in Congress,” Gleich said.

Gleich, an environmental activist originally from Minnesota who moved to the state as a child for her ski-mountaineer training, believes the issue of climate change especially will resonate with voters in the state. It is the area that really drew Gleich to politics, leading her to testify in front of several congressional committees on climate issues in the past few years.

“The Salt Lake Valley deals with really, really poor air quality in the winter,” Utah Democratic Party communications director Mason Hughes told National Journal. “I mean, we’re talking there was a time a couple of years ago where we had the worst air quality in the world. [The] inversion comes in, and we have yellow air days and red air days where people with lung conditions or asthma are really suffering from the amount of pollution that’s in our air.”

Hughes said environmental issues in the state, like air quality and droughts, are directly relevant to the lives of voters. The American Lung Association’s 2023 “State of the Air” report found Salt Lake City ranked among the nation’s worst air-polluted cities, in the top 25 for both ozone and short-term particle pollution. In addition, the ability to federally regulate major industrial contributors to the problem through the Environmental Protection Agency has become hampered by the Supreme Court’s recent overturning of the "Chevron deference" doctrine.

“I think these are critical issues to Utah voters, but Caroline Gleich is right to focus on these issues,” Hughes said.

Utahans have grown increasingly concerned by climate, per Colorado College’s State of the Rockies Project, which found that 64 percent of people in the state have noticed significant effects from climate change in the last decade. The Great Salt Lake dropped to its lowest recorded level in 2022, and the state has been battling dangerous wildfire seasons.

And climate is just one of the topics where Gleich and Democrats see an opportunity to bring young voters on board for this year’s election and beyond. “When people start voting, they become lifelong voters,” she said.

She also noted several far-right initiatives enacted by the state legislature and the governor lately that may turn young voters against the GOP establishment. A ban on diversity, equity, and inclusion programs in public entities went into effect on July 1. A bathroom ban for transgender Utahans went into effect in May. A law signed in March gives school districts the power to ban books containing “indecent” material statewide.

“I think the bottom line is that Utahans don't want the government interfering in these decisions about what books they read, what they do with their bodies, and what bathroom they go to. They want the government to actually work on addressing housing inflation, air quality, the climate crisis, protecting public lands, and mental health,” she said. “This is really about correcting course and getting our leaders back on track and holding them accountable, because frankly, some of the legislation that passed last year is the most extremist that we've seen in our recorded history.”

Gleich’s campaign is a partner in the state party’s “Organize Utah” campaign, the first statewide Democratic coordinated campaign since 2016.

“The coordinated campaign is mostly designed to get people out to vote, get Democrats out to vote this year, and GOTV, or get out the vote, can be really expensive—so by pooling our resources and putting out a unified message that says ‘Vote for Democrats all the way down the ballot,’” Hughes said.

Apart from maintaining connections with longtime supporters, Hughes said the party is invested in getting new people involved through digital messaging, social media, and community events. These have included canvassing at concerts, on Utah’s many college campuses, and at events like Pride in Salt Lake City, which has been ranked as one of the queerest cities in the country.

“We are very focused on building infrastructure to help elect Democrats and other unlikely candidates for decades to come," Gleich said. "It's been really cool to be leading that effort to build this critical infrastructure so we can also defeat [Sen.] Mike Lee in 2028.”

Gleich, who has built a cult following on social media for her ski mountaineering and activist work, told National Journal she was recruited to run for the seat and made the decision within 48 hours, after consulting with lawmakers she’s become close to, like Sen. Martin Heinrich of neighboring New Mexico.

Ultimately, she said one of the defining reasons to enter the race was the lack of young representation in the Senate, where the average age is 65.3, per Pew.

“Utah is the youngest state in the nation, it's the fastest growing state, and we deserve to have a senator that understands the needs of younger families and millennials and of the young people today. And so I think it's very fitting that at age 38, that I'm the average age of America, and I would be a really strong voice to advocate for all generations, but especially to make sure that the issues that the younger generations want to see addressed are well represented in Congress,” she said.

“I see one style of leadership that is trying to take away our rights and take us backwards and to remove protections for air, water, and public lands. And as a 38-year-old, I have a different concept of the future and what that means and someone who's in their mid-60s.”

She chose to run for another reason, one she believes will continue to draw Utahans toward her campaign and toward Democrats—the polarization that has cemented itself in U.S. politics.

It is that same polarization that has made many Utahans apathetic toward Trump. Richard Davis, a professor of political science at Brigham Young University, told National Journal that Utahans’ “lukewarm support” for the former president “goes back to Trump's behavior: His language, his background, his whole demeanor doesn't really fit with a lot of voters in Utah.”

Gleich said, “At the end of the day, we're at a real critical inflection point for America.”

“I think it's really powerful to give people someone to vote for, rather than someone to vote against.”