Two Democrats have announced campaigns in a Utah congressional district as their party’s prospects improve after a judge upholds a decision New political map To the state.
Ben McAdams, who represents Utah’s 4th Congressional District covering south Salt Lake City and central Utah from 2019 to 2021, announced his candidacy Thursday in the district centered on Salt Lake City.
“So many Utah families are working harder than ever before, but still can’t make ends meet, and that’s a struggle I know personally,” McAdams, the former Salt Lake County sheriff, said in a statement.
State Sen. Kathleen Riepe announced her candidacy for the 1st Congressional District on Wednesday. Like McAdams, Rippie touched on an economic topic, saying on social media that health care costs have skyrocketed.
The district that McAdams previously represented has flip-flopped in recent years between Republicans and Democrats. In 2020, McAdams narrowly lost To Republican Burgess Owens.
Owens was re-elected in 2022, after the district was redrawn to include more rural areas, and again in 2024.
Now, as lawmakers in Texas, California and elsewhere scramble to do just that Redrawing congressional boundaries For partisan advantage in next year’s midterm elections, Utah’s map is changing, too.
On Tuesday, a judge in a long-running redistricting case rejected his congressional map Republican lawmakersSaying it unjustifiably favors Republicans over Democrats.
Judge Diana Gibson adopted a map submitted by the plaintiffs in the case, the League of Women Voters of Utah and Mormon Women for Moral Government, creating a Democratic-leaning district centered in the Salt Lake City area. This is where McAdams and Rippie work.
Rippey served on the Utah State Board of Education from 2017 to 2018 and in the State Senate starting in 2019.