In all 81 Utah House and Senate races where a Republican had an opponent, the Republican ran behind Donald Trump’s 2024 showing in that district by an average of 7.8 points.
The reverse held for the other side. In every one of those races, the Republican’s leading opponent, whether a Democrat, an unaffiliated candidate or a third-party candidate, ran ahead of Harris’s 2024 share.
The results are unofficial, and five races remain undecided. The pattern is unlikely to change when results are certified next week.
The finding stands out because Trump has been one of the weaker Republicans on Utah’s ballot for most of the past decade. In 2024, he won about 61% of the two-party vote statewide, which counts only ballots cast for the Republican and Democratic candidates. Gov. Spencer Cox (65%), Sen. John Curtis (66%) and Attorney General Derek Brown (68%) all ran well ahead of him on the same measure. Legislative Republicans this year couldn’t match even Trump’s number.
| How far Republicans ran behind Trump | Races |
|---|---|
| 10 points or more | 26 |
| 5 to 10 points | 36 |
| 0 to 5 points | 19 |
| Ran ahead of Trump | 0 |
Even Republicans who won fell short of Trump’s 2024 marks.
Losing districts Trump carried
Trump won nearly 61% of the two-party vote in House District 9 in 2024. This year, Democrat Angela Choberka won it with nearly 54%.
It was the most Republican of 14 districts Trump carried two years ago, where Republicans lost or are trailing. Seven of those were districts where he won more than 55%:
| District | Trump 2024 | Republican 2026 | Winner |
|---|---|---|---|
| HD09 | 60.7% | 46.3% | Angela Choberka (D) |
| HD62 | 59.3% | 47.3% | David Chappell (D) |
| HD04 | 58.1% | 48.5% | Zane Woolstenhulme (D) |
| HD08 | 56.6% | 48.0% | Kim James (D) |
| HD44 | 56.3% | 47.4% | Jess Birtcher (D) |
| SD05 | 55.9% | 44.2% | CJ Hernandez (D) |
| HD59 | 55.5% | 49.1% | Celeste Johnson (D), not yet called |
Trump won HD09 with nearly 61% of the two-party vote in 2024. This year, Democrat Angela Choberka won it with nearly 54%.
Opponents of every party ran ahead of Harris
The Republicans’ shortfall was matched by their opponents’ gains, and those gains weren’t limited to Democrats.
All 73 Democrats who were the leading challenger to a Republican beat Harris’s 2024 share in their districts, by a median of 7.7 points. Twenty-two ran at least 10 points ahead of her. Democrats who won did better still, running a median of nearly 9 points ahead.
Candidates outside the two major parties showed the same pattern. In the eight races where a Republican’s leading opponent was an independent or third-party candidate, all eight ran ahead of Harris:
| District | Leading opponent | Harris 2024 | Opponent 2026 | Result |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| SD11 | Emily Buss (Forward) | 32.0% | 49.2% | Trails, not yet called |
| HD03 | Patrick Belmont (Unaffiliated) | 44.6% | 59.0% | Won |
| HD64 | Alan Wessman (Unaffiliated) | 22.4% | 36.3% | Lost |
| HD38 | Sergio Sotelo (Unaffiliated) | 44.5% | 55.5% | Won |
| HD06 | James Rich (Forward) | 23.5% | 31.3% | Lost |
| SD20 | Annette McRae (Forward) | 32.0% | 38.8% | Lost |
| HD53 | John Boyd (Forward) | 29.5% | 35.8% | Lost |
| HD68 | Sonya Ray (Constitution) | 12.1% | 15.4% | Lost |
Buss had the biggest overperformance, running 17 points ahead of Harris in Senate District 11. She trails by fewer than 250 votes.
That suggests the shift was less a surge toward Democrats than a move away from Republicans, with voters choosing whoever was running against them.
The gap was widest in the middle of the map
The Republican shortfall wasn’t uniform. It peaked in districts where Trump won between 40% and 50% and shrank toward the most Republican parts of the state:
| Trump's 2024 share in the district | Median Republican gap vs. Trump |
|---|---|
| Under 40% | 7.3 points |
| 40% to 50% | 12.8 points |
| 50% to 60% | 10.1 points |
| 60% to 70% | 8.3 points |
| 70% or more | 6.1 points |
Those middle-of-the-map districts are where Republicans lost their supermajority in the Utah House, the first time that has happened in more than 30 years.
A ticket-splitting cushion disappeared
Many suburban Utah Republicans used to run ahead of Trump by winning voters who disliked him but still backed Republicans for the Legislature.
House District 42 shows how that cushion collapsed. Harris narrowly carried the district in 2024, yet Republican Clint Okerlund won his race with about 55%, roughly 6 points ahead of Trump. This year Okerlund got 46.6%, about 2 points behind Trump’s 2024 number, and lost.
HD42 and HD43, the two Republican-held House districts Harris carried, show some of the smallest gaps between Republicans and Trump anywhere. Those small gaps reflect Trump’s weak starting point in both districts. Those Republicans lost the cushion that used to keep them ahead of him.
Incumbency barely helped
Republican incumbents ran a median of 7.4 points behind Trump, compared with 8.3 points for Republicans in open seats. The incumbent advantage, whether from name recognition, fundraising or years of constituent service, amounted to about a point.
No cushion left
The party holding the White House usually loses ground in midterm elections. Utah Republicans had long softened that blow because voters who rejected Trump still backed their legislators. This year, that protection did not hold in a single contested race.
