Sorting out the Utah GOP congressional field: Lisonbee preps a run while Maloy moves to signatures

The Republican congressional chessboard in Utah is finally moving—but a few of the pieces look a bit wobbly.

Rep. Blake Moore looks to be in for another intraparty brawl. Former House Majority Whip Karianne Lisonbee told reporters on Thursday that she is “considering” challenging Moore in the 2nd Congressional District. GOP sources say the decision is effectively made, with the official announcement likely next week. Lisonbee did not respond to questions from Utah Political Watch.

Some Republicans think Moore could be vulnerable to a primary challenge because of his work with Better Boundaries to put Prop. 4 on the ballot in 2018. That anti-gerrymandering measure has become a scarlet letter among some in the GOP base. Republicans are driving the current repeal effort, with registered GOP voters making up more than 70% of petition signers.

Moore is currently collecting signatures to qualify for a spot on the primary ballot.

Lisonbee was first elected to the Utah House in 2016, after her predecessor, Rep. Curt Oda, effectively cleared the lane for her to succeed him. That year, there were persistent rumors that Oda was planning to retire, which he dismissed. When the candidate filing period opened, he submitted paperwork to run for re-election. On the final day of the filing period, Lisonbee, who was a member of the Syracuse City Council, jumped into the race. A few days later, Oda withdrew, leaving Lisonbee as the only Republican in the contest.

Jumping from Capitol Hill (the small one) to Capitol Hill (the big one) is rare in Utah. Rep. Mike Kennedy did it last year, moving directly from the Utah Senate to the U.S. House. The last person to do that before Kennedy was former Utah House Speaker Howard Nielsen, who ran for the newly created 3rd Congressional District in 1982 and won. Jim Hansen also jumped to Congress in 1980 after serving four terms in the Utah House.

• Ben McAdams, who was elected to Congress in 2018, moved from the Utah Senate to Salt Lake County Mayor before heading to Congress.
• Rob Bishop was a longtime member of the Utah House, even serving a stint as Utah House Speaker. He was retired from the Utah Legislature for nearly a decade before winning a seat in Congress in 2002.

Moore will likely have a massive campaign cash advantage over Lisonbee. His latest campaign finance disclosure shows he has $2.2 million cash on hand. He’s also a member of leadership in the House Republican Caucus, which should unlock even more resources should he need them. Lisonbee has about $23,000 in her legislative campaign account, but that money cannot be transferred to a federal race.

Moore, who has been forced into a primary election every cycle since his first race in 2020, is collecting signatures to secure his place on the ballot. Moore has never won the delegate vote at the GOP convention.

• In 2020, he finished second at the convention to Kerry Gibson. Moore won the four-way GOP primary race that year by fewer than 3,000 votes.
• Two years later, Moore was defeated at the GOP convention by Andrew Badger. He handily defeated Badger and Tina Cannon in the GOP primary.
• In 2024, Moore lost the GOP convention vote to Paul Miller. Moore cruised to an easy victory over Miller in the primary election.

Meanwhile, Burgess Owens’ retirement spared Republicans from an intra-party fight between Reps. Celeste Maloy and Mike Kennedy, in the 3rd District

Rep. Mike Kennedy, who lives in Utah’s 3rd District, jumped to run in the 4th District. It’s not much of a shift since the district line sits just to the east of his Alpine home.

If he wins in the new district, he would join the list of Utah members of Congress not to live in the district he represents:

• Jason Chaffetz lived just outside the 3rd Congressional District when he was first elected in 2008. When the maps were redrawn in 2011, he was moved inside the district boundaries.
• After the Utah Legislature redrew the congressional map in the 2011 redistricting cycle, Democrat Jim Matheson jumped from the 2nd District, where he lived, to the newly created 4th District. He defeated Republican Mia Love in 2012, but did not run for another term in 2014.
• Reps. Blake Moore and Burgess Owens did not live inside their districts when they were first elected to Congress in 2020.

Rep. Celeste Maloy has already shifted tactics in her race after Phil Lyman announced he was challenging her for the GOP nomination in the 3rd District on Thursday. She now says she will gather signatures to secure a spot on the primary ballot.

That’s a dramatic shift, after she eschewed the signature path in both of her previous elections.

• In the 2023 special election after her boss, Rep. Chris Stewart, unexpectedly retired, Maloy did not collect signatures and pulled off an upset win in the GOP convention over former House Speaker Greg Hughes. She won the GOP primary that year over Bruce Hough and Becky Edwards, who both collected signatures to appear on the ballot.
• Two years later, she doubled down on the strategy, publicly stating she would not gather signatures and only seek the GOP nomination through the convention process. That almost backfired as she narrowly avoided elimination at the convention by 30 votes.

Now with Lyman in the race, she’s hedging her bets.

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