University of Utah Associate Librarian Rebekah Cummings is the Utah Democratic Party’s nominee for lieutenant governor in this year’s gubernatorial election, the campaign announced Monday afternoon. She joins Brian King on the ticket.
Cummings is the digital matters interim director at the University of Utah’s Marriott Library and the chair of the Utah State Libary board. She served as the Utah Library Association’s president from 2018 to 2019. She is also co-chair of the Utah Library Association Advocacy Committee.
King, a Salt Lake City Democratic, has served in the Legislature since 2009 and is a former Utah House minority leader. He is in his eighth term in the Legislature. King announced in early December that he was going to run for the Beehive State’s top executive post.
At the Utah Capitol on Monday afternoon, King told reporters that he selected Cummings because her qualifications and experience with the Utah Library Association are “very relevant to the issues we’re facing.”
“As matters of policies in Utah right now, I think she’ll be just a great lieutenant governor for the people,” he said.
Cummings said she was “honored and humbled” by the nomination and excited to work with King.
“I’ve always been impressed with the way he focuses on issues that matter to Utahns,” she said. “That he cares about common sense solutions and working across the aisle to get things done.”
She is a vocal advocate against banning books and opposed this year’s HB29, which allows a book to be banned across Utah if three school districts vote to ban it. She told reporters on Monday that her priorities are closely aligned with King’s.
“We care, first and foremost about preserving our Great Salt Lake, making sure we’re getting water there, making sure our air is clean, making sure that publicly funded schools are adequately funded,” she said. “I think we also care a great deal about individual freedoms and making sure that Utahns get to make their own choices about things like reproductive health and banning books.”
King and Cummings will face either incumbent Gov. Spencer Cox and Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson or Rep. Phil Lyman and Layne Bangerter on Election Day in November. Cox and Lyman face off in the June 25 Republican primary.
Bangerter may not be eligible for the ticket because he was a resident of Idaho before moving to Utah in 2021 and was still using an Idaho address in 2022. Bangerter wasn’t registered to vote in Utah until 2022 and the state Constitution says candidates for lieutenant governor must be a resident of Utah for at least five years before running.
