How the 'blue tsunami' swept through Utah's legislative map

Utah Republicans lost ground in nearly every legislative district on election night, running about 17 percentage points behind where their party typically performs.

That’s the median across all 74 House and Senate races Tuesday that had both a Republican and a Democrat on the ballot, so a few blowouts can’t explain it. Some districts moved more and some less, but almost all moved by a similar amount. This analysis looks at how big the shift was, where it showed up and what it means for the Legislature.

Results are unofficial, and late-counted ballots could change some numbers. A pattern this consistent is unlikely to disappear.

How we measured it

Utah Political Watch calculated a “typical Republican vote” for every legislative district. The estimate combines eight statewide elections from 2016 to 2024, recent legislative results and voter registration. It is the baseline for our race ratings.

Comparing this year’s results with that baseline produces the 17-point figure. But the baseline has weaknesses. It includes some strongly Republican years: Spencer Cox won about 70% of the two-party vote in 2016. It also uses voter registration, which in Utah runs more Republican than actual voting. So we checked the result against two other measures.

Even the smallest of those numbers is large. Republican legislative candidates ran 8 points behind Trump in a state where Trump has historically been one of the weaker Republicans presidential candidates on the ballot. They fell more than 12 points from their own party’s 2024 legislative results in the same districts.

The shift was everywhere

Two-thirds of districts moved between 12 and 22 points toward Democrats. The size of the move had little to do with how Republican a district was to begin with.

Statistically, the shift had essentially no relationship to a district’s partisan starting point. Deep-red and competitive districts moved about the same. That is the signature of a national wave, which moved voters across the board, regardless of who their legislator was or how their district usually votes.

The Senate moved slightly more than the House, with a median shift of 18 points compared with 17.

Money and incumbency barely mattered

If anything were going to blunt a wave, conventional wisdom says it would be money and incumbency. In Utah this year, neither did much.

• Money: Republicans who had at least 10 times as much cash as their Democratic opponent ran a median of 16.9 points behind the baseline. Republicans without that edge ran 18.7 points behind. A huge financial edge was worth about 2 points.
• Incumbency: Republican incumbents ran 17.1 points behind the baseline, and Republicans in open seats ran 18.2 points behind. Incumbency was worth about a point.

Individual races bear this out:

• Senate Majority Leader Kirk Cullimore had more than 150 times as much cash as Democrat Shana Anderson and lost by 13 points.
• Jim Dunnigan had $163,000 on hand against a Democrat who entered the race late with $8,000. Dunnigan lost by 9.
• Steve Eliason lost to a challenger who raised less than $2,000.

This was a partisan wave, not an anti-incumbent one

Polling earlier this fall suggested an anti-incumbent mood in Utah. The results point to a shift away from Republicans specifically. Democratic incumbents also gained ground, running about 16 points better than the baseline.

The exception is SD11, the one Senate race where a non-Republican incumbent faced a Republican challenger. Forward Party Sen. Emily Buss is narrowly trailing Republican Brooks Benson.

That fall poll asked Utahns how they planned to vote compared with past elections and pointed to a shift of 4 to 5 points. The real shift was several times larger.

Democrats outran Harris nearly everywhere

Democrats ran ahead of Kamala Harris’s 2024 showing in 73 of the 74 races with both a Republican and a Democrat on the ballot. The median Democrat ran about 8 points ahead of her. Compared with the same districts’ 2024 legislative races, Democrats improved by a median of more than 12 points.

Democrats are leading in 13 legislative seats, 11 in the House and two in the Senate, in districts Donald Trump carried two years ago. Several were not close for Trump:

In the two Senate pickups, Hernandez ran nearly 12 points ahead of Harris, and Anderson ran 11 points ahead.

Democrats also fielded more candidates. They contested 65 of 75 House races, up from 50 in 2024. Several flipped seats had no Democrat on the ballot two years ago, including HD36, where Blake Townsend became the nominee after the original candidate withdrew.

Even long shots came close. In the 60 Republican-held seats where Democrats had a candidate, the Democrat won at least 40% of the two-party vote in 38 and at least 45% in 28. A Democrat clearing 40% in a Republican district is usually a strong showing in Utah. This year it was routine.

As with Republicans, money made little difference. Many winning Democrats ran shoestring campaigns. Ofa Matagi raised less than $2,000 and is leading in HD43. Anderson had about $1,300 left in the final weeks and beat Cullimore by 13 points.

Democratic seats held firm. Across all Democratic-held seats, the median Democrat won about 78% of the two-party vote, and the weakest Democratic incumbent won 65.5%. Democrats in those seats ran about 9 points ahead of Harris, similar to their gains in Republican-held districts.

Democrats are on track to hold roughly 27 House seats, up from 14 before the election.

What a 17-point shift does to a gerrymandered map

Utah’s legislative maps make Republican majorities hard to dislodge in a normal year. A district where Republicans typically win 70% of the vote can absorb a 5- or 10-point shift without real danger. A 17-point shift turns it into a 53% district.

That’s what happened across the state. Republicans won about 51% of the two-party vote across all contested legislative races. That figure excludes uncontested seats, many of them heavily Republican, so it understates the party’s statewide strength, but it shows how close the contested races were.

Some of the biggest shifts came in seats we rated Safe Republican. Republicans ran 24 to 29 points behind the baseline in HD51, HD50, HD52 and HD61. All four remain in Republican hands for now, but HD61 is within 2 points and HD52 is within 5.

The smallest shifts tended to come in districts with third-party candidates on the ballot. That makes the two-party comparison less precise, so read those districts with caution.

What it means for 2028

Eleven seats we rated Safe Republican this year finished with the Republican under 60% of the two-party vote. In a normal election, most of those seats would snap back. Republicans can no longer take them for granted, though, and some could be competitive in 2028 if the national environment stays even moderately favorable to Democrats.

A uniform 17-point shift was at the high end of what we thought possible this year. It nearly matches the average Democratic overperformance in special elections nationwide this cycle, which suggests Utah was not insulated from the national wave.

We will update this analysis once the final results are certified.