About a month before Utah’s June 25 primary election, Kris Kimball, the Republican nominee for the District 7 state school board seat, refused to participate in a debate hosted by the Utah Education Debate Coalition.
In a fiery email to organizers, Kimball branded her GOP primary opponent, incumbent Molly Hart, an “illegitimate” Republican candidate, though Hart collected enough signatures to secure her spot on the primary ballot, a process that is legal under state law. Kimball argued that her victory in securing the Utah Republican Party’s nomination over Hart gave her “credibility and authenticity.”
“To suggest otherwise is to diminish the significance of our republican processes and the values we hold dear,” Kimball wrote.
But most Utah Republican primary voters seemed to disagree with her assessment. Kimball lost the race to Hart, garnering just under 45% of votes tallied as of July 10.
Kimball wasn’t the only far-right state school board candidate who lost. Despite the state’s GOP delegates choosing to support five candidates with staunchly conservative stances on issues including parental rights in education, voters prevented three of them from advancing to November’s general election.
Republican primary voters didn’t only reject certain party-endorsed candidates in state school board races. But it’s tricky to pinpoint why it may have happened in this sphere, said Matthew Burbank, political science professor and associate dean of undergraduate studies and faculty at the University of Utah.
“These are much less high-profile races, so it’s harder to know what’s going on with those elections,” Burbank said.
This year also marked only the third-ever partisan elections for state school board.
“It’s sort of very mixed results,” he continued. “Several incumbents survived this process, but there were a couple of incumbents who lost.”
Those two incumbents who lost were Brent Strate, defeated by challenger Rod Hall in District 3 (encompassing Layton, Clearfield, and nearby cities); and Kristan Norton, who lost by a significant margin — 30 percentage points — to Joann Brinton in District 15, which spans Utah’s southern-most counties.
“As far as I can tell, the only real reason for those losses was that the ‘Natalie Cline-type,’ parents’ rights crowd targeted them, and really wanted to get rid of them, and managed to mobilize voters against them,” Burbank said.
Utah State Board of Education member Cline in April failed to gain delegates’ approval during the Salt Lake County Republican Nominating Convention, effectively ending her bid for re-election. Instead, Republican opponent Amanda Bollinger received just over 63% of the delegate vote, granting her the party nomination for Cline’s District 9 seat in November.
The unexpected move came after Cline questioned a high school athlete’s gender in a since-deleted Facebook post. The post caused a social media frenzy and prompted formal condemnation from state lawmakers and local leaders alike. USBE board leaders in February voted to censure Cline and demanded her immediate resignation. Cline ignored the request.
Despite booting Cline, Republican delegates also backed candidates who share her anti-LGBTQ and anti-DEI positions, including longtime Cline associate Monica Wilbur. Wilbur challenged incumbent Matt Hymas for the District 10 seat, which covers a majority of Tooele County.
Wilbur secured 52.1% of the vote at the convention while Hymas received 47.8%. However, in the primary, Wilbur fell short, capturing only 48.05% of the public’s tallied vote as of July 10, making Hymas’ apparent victory over Wilbur a narrow one.
But in other races, incumbents who performed poorly among delegates saw surprising primary wins. Take incumbent Randy Boothe of District 13, which covers part of Utah County. Boothe was knocked out in the first round of voting at the convention with just 25% of the vote, though he had gathered enough signatures to make it onto the Republican primary ballot.
His far-right challenger, Cari Bartholomew, got 51% votes in the second round at the convention. In the primary, however, Boothe secured a victory over Bartholomew by approximately 5 percentage points. With no Democratic challenger in the general election, he will retain his seat.
Burbank suggested that the variations in primary race outcomes could be attributed to urban-rural differences. Rural Utahns typically support school choice initiatives such as vouchers, he said, for instance.
“In Salt Lake or Davis or Utah County, you may have your choice of other schools,” Burbank said, “but you don’t have that choice once you get out of those more urbanized areas.”
Still, he said the difference between party nominations and voter results this year indicates delegates are “out of touch with where most Republican voters are.”
The Utah Republican Party did not respond to a request for comment.
Primary election results
District 3: Rod Hall defeated incumbent Brent Strate with 57.26% of the vote. Hall will face off against Utah Forward candidate Laura Johnson in November.
District 7: Incumbent Molly Hart clinched the win over Kris Kimball with 55.43% of the vote. Hart will take on Democrat John Arthur for a chance at the seat in the general election.
District 10: Incumbent Matt Hymas will face off against Democratic candidate Deborah Gatrell this fall.
District 13: Randy Boothe will keep his seat as there is no Democratic challenger. His new term begins early next year.
District 15: Challenger Joann Brinton knocked out incumbent Kristan Norton. As there is no Democratic challenger, Brinton will begin her term early next year.
Upcoming general election races
District 6: Incumbent Democrat Carol Barlow Lear will vie to retain her District 6 seat against challenger Diane Livingston, who is running unaffiliated, in the fall. District 6 encompasses the eastern part of Salt Lake County and the westernmost part of Summit County.
Livingston serves as a substitute teacher in the Park City School District, according to her candidate filings. Lear is serving her second term and was first elected in 2016.
District 9: Republican challenger Amanda Bollinger will face off against Democrat Will Shiflett for Natalie Cline’s current seat. District 9 covers southern Salt Lake County and northern Utah County.
District 12: After current USBE Chair James Moss was knocked out in the GOP Convention, Republican Cole Kelley will duke it out against Jason Allen, who is running unaffiliated, for a chance to represent District 12 this November. The district includes eastern Utah County as well as Wasatch, Duchesne, Daggett and Uintah counties.
Allen is an assistant park manager for Utah State Parks, according to his candidate filings. This will be Kelley’s second bid for the District 12 seat, having previously run and lost in 2012. Kelley is a teacher and wrestling coach in the Alpine School District.
Moss was first elected in 2020. His term officially concludes at the end of this year.
Correction • July 16, 2:20 p.m.: This story has been updated to correct the amount of years Utah has had partisan state school board elections.