Sen. Emily Buss (FWD-Eagle Mountain) speaks with Sen. Keith Grover (R-Provo) on the floor of the Utah Senate. (Photo: Facebook)
Emily Buss, the lone Utah Forward Party member in the Utah Legislature, faces a steep climb to keep her seat and win a full term representing Senate District 11 in November. That path got a bit easier Monday.
Democrat Mackenzie Miller withdrew from the SD11 race, leaving Buss in a head-to-head contest against Republican nominee Brooks Benson. Miller will not appear on the November ballot.
In an email statement, the Forward Party of Utah said Miller's exit changes the race.
"With the Democratic candidate out of the race, voters will now have a choice between the Forward Party incumbent and her Republican challenger," the statement read. "What happens next in Senate District 11 is more than a competition for a single seat. It's a contest between the status quo and a new vision for how our political system might work."
Buss was appointed to the Senate after winning a special election to replace former Sen. Daniel Thatcher, who switched his party affiliation to the Utah Forward Party on the final day of the 2025 session, citing frustration with the GOP. Thatcher resigned in October 2025, and Buss succeeded him. She is now the Forward Party's highest-ranking officeholder in the nation.
Benson won the nomination at the GOP convention, defeating two other candidates, including former House Majority Whip John Knotwell.
If Buss wins in November, she would be the first third-party candidate elected to the Utah Legislature in more than a century. J. Alex Bevan won a Utah House seat from Tooele County on the Socialist Party ticket in 1914 and was re-elected in 1916. In 1898, Sherman S. Smith of Ogden won a House seat as a Populist.
The district leans heavily Republican. Registration statistics from L2 Political show 47% of SD11's registered voters are Republicans, 33.5% are unaffiliated, and just over 12% are Democrats. Donald Trump carried the district by nearly 35 points in 2024.
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How this impacts our race rating
We are keeping SD11 as Likely Republican.
This looks like it could be a competitive race. It isn't, at least based on what we know now.
The seat's history favors Republicans, but that history predates both candidates. Neither has run for the state legislature before, and the last time this seat was on the ballot, in 2022, the Republican incumbent ran unopposed.
Buss isn't entirely untested, though. In 2025, she ran for Eagle Mountain City Council in the same city where she and Benson both live. She took 17% of the vote in the primary and 24.3% in the general election, finishing third in a four-candidate field. That's not the record of a candidate with strong support in her own backyard.
The district has also changed. Its registered voters are split almost evenly between Salt Lake, Tooele and Utah counties. The last time the seat drew a contested election, in 2018, it covered only parts of Salt Lake and Tooele counties. That means a large share of this year's electorate is meeting both candidates for the first time.
Money has moved toward Benson, too. Since July, he has collected $5,000 from Sen. Kirk Cullimore, $1,000 from Sen. Scott Sandall, $7,500 from the Salt Lake Chamber's political action committee, and $5,000 from DAI Managers, a Draper real estate development company.