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If you’re new to Utah, be prepared to be struck by two things: Its magnificent redrock and its equally red political landscape.

I’m Robert Gehrke, a political columnist for The Salt Lake Tribune. I’ve covered government and elections in this state for more than 25 years and I’m going to help get you oriented, and hopefully understand, some of the forces that shape Utah’ politics.

Buckle up.

We’ll start our journey looking at a fairly broad measurement:

Voter registration

According to data published by the state in May, 52.4% of voters are registered Republicans, 13.8% are Democrats, 28.2% are unaffiliated and the remaining 5.6% belong to a third party.

That level of GOP registration is the highest it has been since at least 2014, and over that same span the unaffiliated registration has trended downward. Democratic registration trended slowly upward until 2021 and has dipped slightly since.

Part of that may be because some number of Democrats and unaffiliated voters (we don’t know for sure how many) have aligned with the GOP so they can vote in the party’s primary elections. Republicans in Utah have closed primaries — meaning you have to be registered with the party to vote, and for many seats those primaries are the most consequential elections.

We should also note that, while nearly three out of 10 voters don’t ascribe to either major party, when Y2 Analytics pressed these independent voters after the 2022 on which party they are most in tune with, 53% said it was the Republican Party and 38% said Democrat. So the GOP seems to have an advantage, even among those independent voters.

The LDS factor

Members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints weren’t always die-hard Republicans, but since the 1960s they have become one of the most reliable GOP voter blocs in the country.

Whole books could be written (and have been) about the evolution, but to oversimplify it, Republican allegiance grew largely out of cultural divides — civil rights, abortion, Equal Rights Amendment, same-sex marriage and so forth.

In the 2020 election, 62% of LDS voters supported Donald Trump according to Y2 Analytics’ post-election poll, which is only marginally higher than the 58% that Trump finished with. But among active LDS members, support was even stronger, with 71% saying they had voted for Trump.

Roughly the same margin translated into the race for governor that year, with Spencer Cox receiving 72% of the vote among active LDS, compared to 63% of the vote he received among all voters.

According to the most recent U.S. Religion Census — a major nationwide survey of faiths — the percentage of Utahns who are LDS has fallen slightly from 72% in 1990 to 65% in 2020, that massive voting bloc is still a decided advantage for Utah Republicans.

And in June, the LDS Church warned its members against straight-ticket voting, saying that blindly casting a ballot for one political party without weighing individual candidates and their position on important issues “is a threat to democracy” and inconsistent with the faith’s teachings.

How It Plays Out at The Ballot Box

As you can guess, the simple math in Utah has made it almost impossible for a Democrat to win a statewide race. The last to do so was Jan Graham, who was elected attorney general in 1996. Scott Matheson won as governor in 1980, and Frank Moss, in 1970, was the last Democrat elected to the U.S. Senate. Lyndon Johnson’s win in 1964 was the last time a Democratic presidential candidate won the state.

From 2000 to 2020, we have had six presidential races — twice with a GOP incumbent, twice with a Democrat and twice it was an open seat. Over the course of those elections, the Republican candidate prevailed by an average margin of 63% to 29%.

That 34% disadvantage — which might have been higher if independent candidate Evan McMullin hadn’t received 21.5% in 2016 — is a decent approximation of the hole every Democrat who runs statewide is staring up from.

Blue Islands In The Red Ocean

So we’ve established that the state is somewhere between two-thirds and 70% Republican or GOP-leaning. But there are pockets that are less staunchly conservative.

In the last six presidential elections, there are three counties that have been won by Democrats — Summit, Salt Lake and Grand. That said, Mitt Romney won all three when he was the GOP presidential nominee and Trump won Grand in 2016, so they’re a light shade of blue bordering on purple.

There’s also a distinct urban-rural divide in the state. Utah has five counties that we might consider urban — Utah, Salt Lake, Davis, Weber and Washington.

Taken together, those five counties went Republican in the last four presidential elections by an average margin of 35%, so better than two-to-one. Pretty dang red. That’s nothing, though, compared to the rural neighbors that backed Republican nominees by a margin of 52%, or a three-to one margin.

Based, again, on the last four presidential contests, the five most Republican counties are:

5. Millard (+71.1% R margin)

4. Sevier (+72.4% R margin)

3. Uintah (+73.7% R margin)

2. Duchesne (+74.1% R margin)

1. Piute (+75% R margin)

And here are the five most Democratic counties (or at least the least Republican ones):

5. Weber (29% R advantage)

4. San Juan (9.9% R advantage)

3. Salt Lake (Even)

2. Grand (2% D advantage)

1. Summit (11.3% D advantage)

But isn’t Salt Lake County blue? Well, because when Romney won the county in 2012 by 20 points, the numbers are a bit skewed. Take that one race out and Salt Lake leans Democratic by 6.7%.