Fundraising reports reshape Utah Senate race ratings

In politics, money isn't everything. But it isn't nothing, either. A campaign with real financial support can knock on doors, run ads, and reach undecided voters. A campaign with none of that can't compete, no matter how favorable the underlying numbers might suggest.

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The most recent disclosures from Utah Senate candidates show which races are actually competitive and which ones only look that way on paper.

Utah Political Watch reviewed the fundraising totals for every candidate in every contested Utah Senate race on the 2026 ballot. In several districts, the money confirms what our historical election data already showed. In at least two others, it tells a different story, and we're changing our race ratings as a result.

Here's what changed and why.

Republican Doug Fiefia has raised $58,752 combined between his last two filing periods. His Democratic opponent, A. Dane Anderson, has raised exactly $0 and has $0 cash on hand. Anderson does not appear to be running an active campaign financially. Absent a dramatic and unexpected turnaround, this race could be uncompetitive.

This one requires an explanation. Incumbent Republican Ron Winterton's campaign finance report shows -$95,804.74 in cash on hand, which looks alarming at first glance. But Winterton runs a campaign deficit every election cycle and has won handily every time. It's a quirk of how he manages his campaign finances, not a sign of vulnerability. The more relevant fact in SD20: there is no Democrat in this race at all. Winterton faces only a Forward Party challenger. With no major-party opposition, this rating moves to Safe Republican.

In SD19, incumbent Kirk Cullimore has roughly 67 times more cash on hand than Democrat Shana Anderson. That would normally be the kind of gap that pushes a race toward Safe Republican. But SD19 has consistently shown the closest partisan numbers of any Senate race in our historical analysis. We're holding the rating at Likely Republican for now, but this is a race we're watching closely.

SD11 is unusual. The seat is currently held by Emily Buss, a Forward Party incumbent who inherited it after Sen. Daniel Thatcher switched from the GOP to the Forward Party in 2025, then resigned. Buss has more campaign cash on hand than the Republican challenger trying to reclaim the seat, Brooks Benson. We've rated SD11 based on its Republican voting history predating the party switch. But an underfunded Republican challenger may be a significant factor in whether that seat actually flips back.

Readers who look closely at the full ratings table will notice something that looks like a contradiction. Both SD6 and SD23 are rated Safe Republican in our Likely Outcome column, but their Utah Competitiveness Index score — Lean Republican — tells a slightly different story. That's not an error. The two ratings measure different things. Likely Outcome reflects the raw share of the vote Republicans typically win in each district — 78% in SD6, 77% in SD23 — which clears our threshold for a safe seat by a comfortable margin. The UCI measures how each district compares to Utah's statewide Republican baseline, and both districts, while safely Republican, are slightly less dominant than Utah's reddest seats. Both are accurate; they measure different things. One tells you who wins. The other tells you how the district compares to the rest of the state.

The updated Utah Senate map now shows seven Safe Republican seats, three Likely Republican, and just one race, SD5, rated competitive. Democrats hold one Likely Democratic seat and three Safe Democratic seats.

Both ratings are built from the same underlying data — eight statewide elections between 2016 and 2024, state legislative results from 2022 and 2024, and current voter registration — but they answer different questions. The Likely Outcome rating is based on the raw share of the two-party vote a Republican or Democratic candidate has historically won in a district; it tells you who is expected to win. The Utah Competitiveness Index (UCI) measures how that same district's results compare to Utah's statewide partisan baseline of roughly 65% Republican, showing which races are competitive within the context of a heavily Republican state. A district can be safely Republican on the Likely Outcome scale while still registering as only modestly Republican on the UCI, because it wins comfortably in absolute terms even though it performs below Utah's average.