Utah Senate candidate Trent Staggs carries a "Utah For Trump flag" during a rally on June 14, 2024, in Orem, Utah. Rick Bowmer/AP Photo
Former President Donald Trump hates losers, but he backed one in the Utah Senate race this year. Despite a much-promoted endorsement from Trump, Riverton Mayor Trent Staggs lost the GOP primary to Rep. John Curtis by 20 points on Tuesday. The primary victory all but ensures that Curtis will be the state’s next US Senator in a state that hasn’t sent a Democrat to the Senate since 1970.
Staggs was the first Republican candidate to officially challenge Sen. Mitt Romney last year, months before the one-term senator announced his retirement. He assiduously worked right-wing media to call attention to his candidacy, and he sought out endorsements from a host of MAGA celebrities. As I explained in April:
He’s been endorsed by a string of national right-wing luminaries, including podcaster and former Trump Treasury official Monica Crowley, Ric Grenell, Trump’s acting director of national intelligence in 2020, and Arizona Senate candidate Kari Lake, who hosted a private fundraiser for him in Utah in September. Alabama Sen. Tommy Tuberville campaigned for him in March. Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), who calls himself the “Trumpiest congressman,” headlined a rally for Staggs on March 28; Turning Point USA’s Charlie Kirk joins him this week. And Staggs just scored the endorsement of failed GOP presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy after signing his “American Truth Pledge,” which commits him to, among other things, seeking a 75 percent reduction in the size of the federal government and mandating that all high school seniors pass a civics test in order to vote.
Staggs also made a pilgrimage to Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort and even scored a speaking slot at CPAC, the oldest and largest conservative conference in the country.
The problem with his strategy was that while it may have raised his profile, most of the people making up those audiences don’t vote in Utah. His campaign also focused on generic MAGA talking points, and he showed a striking lack of familiarity with Utah-specific concerns.
The problem with his strategy was that while it may have raised his profile, most of the people making up those audiences don’t vote in Utah.
Curtis had led the polls as soon as he entered the race, and Staggs never caught up. The co-founder of the House Conservative Climate Caucus that focuses on clean energy policy, Curtis is a popular former mayor of Provo who once was a Democrat. He has represented Utah’s third district since 2017 and was seen as Romney’s heir apparent. He has resisted endorsing Trump for president and after the riot at the US Capitol on January 6, he introduced a resolution condemning Trump for trying to overturn the 2020 election results.
Curtis came to the race with deep pockets, including the support of Conservative Values for Utah, a super-PAC largely funded by one man: Jay Faison, a conservative North Carolina philanthropist who claims to want to accelerate a transition to clean energy by supporting nuclear power, natural gas fracking, and carbon-capture technology.
Staggs’ sole victory was in Washington County in Southern Utah, one of the state’s fastest-growing areas that’s also a hotbed of extremism. When the far-right activist Ammon Bundy recently fled Idaho to dodge an arrest warrant that had been issued for him for failing to show up in court for proceedings in a civil defamation suit against him, he sought refuge in Washington County. But almost everywhere else, Curtis crushed Staggs, even in rural areas where Romney had been wildly unpopular. The Trump endorsement didn’t even help Staggs in tiny Beaver County, which in 2020 gave Trump his biggest win in the state, with 87 percent of the vote.
