Keeping a group in order is second nature to Utah’s GOP chair and he needed it last weekend
MOUNT PLEASANT – On any given day, Carson Jorgensen spends most of his waking hours outdoors tending 4,500 sheep and pointing them in the right direction.
But this past Saturday, the Mount Pleasant rancher stayed inside, steering the actions of a different crowd at the Mountain America Expo Center in Sandy.
Jorgensen – elected chairman of Utah’s Republican Party in May 2021 – oversaw his first state convention Saturday where roughly 3,700 delegates heard candidate speeches and cast votes to narrow several state and federal races.
Reached last Wednesday by phone, Jorgensen seemed remarkably relaxed despite the looming event. He credited effective delegation of responsibilities and extensive attention to detail for his ability to feel at ease with the big day fast approaching.
“I’ve got a really great convention team that we put together, and we’re just really making sure all the T’s are crossed and the I’s are dotted,” the 32-year-old Jorgensen said, noting he’d picked Cache Valley Economic Development Director Shawn Milne to oversee the event. “He’s done a few of them, so we have that experience to make up for my inexperience.”
As the state’s ultra-dominant political party, Utah Republicans run the gamut from moderate centrists to fringe far-right folks.
Since Utah Republican primaries are closed, voters of other political stripes must temporarily affiliate with the party if they want to help determine the outcome of certain key races.
In March 2014, state lawmakers – in response to a citizen-led ballot initiative – passed the SB54 compromise that provided candidates with the signature gathering path to the primary in addition to the longstanding caucus-convention process used to select GOP candidates.
At Saturday’s convention, one woman approached the microphone to urge state lawmakers to repeal SB54.
Expecting the unexpected
At almost every convention, surprises happen depending on which direction the political winds might be gusting. Jorgensen himself became state party chair in one such upset.
His five-way race had narrowed to three by the morning of last year’s convention, and Jorgensen – a tall lanky cowboy from rural Sanpete County – emerged from behind to eliminate former Congressional candidate, Tina Cannon, in the first round and former Utah County party chairman Stewart Peay in the second round.
Heading into this year’s nominating convention, Sen. Mike Lee faced six challengers, and 1st District Congressman Blake Moore had four – as did 3rd District Congressman John Curtis. That meant three-minute rapid-fire speeches from each candidate, followed by one-minute follow-ups if more than one round of voting was required.
“It’s so hard to tell,” Jorgensen said last week when asked about the Mike Lee contest. “These other people have done wonderful jobs campaigning, they’ve been out seeing the people. They’re doing a lot.”
Lee’s challengers had campaigned for several months, former state Rep. Becky Edwards the first among them to declare her candidacy last May.
In addition, disturbing text messages between Lee and former Trump White House chief of staff Mark Meadows recently surfaced as part of the Jan. 6 probe, raising concerns on both sides of the aisle.
But at Saturday’s convention, Lee took the stage to thunderous applause and easily snagged his party’s nomination with almost 75 percent of the delegate vote in the first round.
“A gathering like this one is one of the greatest forces for good that’s ever existed. You know, we have so much to fix,” Lee told the crowd, praising delegates for showing up.
Then he mentioned the Constitution, and how “even when it’s challenging, we follow it.” More thunderous applause erupted. Bringing up their favorite bogeyman – “The price to live in Joe Biden’s America is way, way too high” – helped bring the house down.
Edwards and Ally Isom came in a distant second and third, but both gathered signatures statewide to secure spots on the June 28 primary ballot. That broader field of voters might improve their chances.
In Saturday’s 1st Congressional contest, one-term incumbent Blake Moore came close to getting eliminated as Andrew Badger took 59.2 percent in the third round of delegate voting. The party requires 60 percent of the delegate vote to secure the nomination.
Moore’s attempts to tout his team’s hard work – “I want to be very clear about one thing, I’m running on my record” – played to polite but brief applause. His mention of standing up to Biden’s and Pelosi’s destructive agendas had fared better.
Badger easily roused the crowd by ragging on Pres. Biden’s “getting away with broken borders … and “forcing illegal vaccine mandates on us.”
“This election is about taking power from a corrupt D.C. establishment and giving it to the people – as the Constitution intended,” Badger told delegates in his final one-minute speech.
Badger and Moore now advance to the June 28 primary, as does Tina Cannon who gathered signatures to secure her spot on the ballot. She briefly entertained delegates by saying “You don’t bring a knife to a gunfight – you bring a Cannon.”
In the 3rd Congressional contest, incumbent John Curtis (45 percent) emerged as the underdog to challenger Chris Herrod (55 percent) in the 2nd round. Both now advance to the June primary.
The 4th District’s incumbent Burgess Owens secured the party’s nomination with 69 percent of the delegate vote, but challenger Jake Hunsaker (31 percent) gathered signatures so both will appear on the June ballot.
And 2nd District incumbent Chris Stewart handily snagged the nomination with 84 percent of the delegate vote, but challenger Erin Rider gathered signatures to secure her spot on the primary ballot.
Balancing act
During his brief April 12 interview with Jorgensen, Fox News’ Tucker Carlson referred to Sen. Mitt Romney and Gov. Spencer Cox as liberals who “have unmasked, undisguised contempt for Republican voters.”
Carlson also inferred that Cox might be a pedophile or sexual predator – a handy tool used to villify politicians who fail to fall in line with the rightwing agenda.
Jorgensen did not publicly disagree with Carlson, noting that while he wants the party to have a big-tent feel, members “have to fall within the scope of what we believe as Republicans.”
Carlson compared Cox and Romney to “wild-eyed crazy people who are pushing for the far-left agenda.”
Neither Romney nor Cox made an appearance at Saturday’s convention.
Undoubtedly, Utah’s GOP consists of at least two wings that sometimes manage to keep each other in check. But the Trump influence has moved the dial further right, making centrists seem like extreme leftists to some.
“There’s a lot of people that are really upset with what’s happening,” Jorgensen told Carlson. “This kind of woke ideology is where we have to be careful.” He cautioned that Utah is on track to becoming California, something his party needs to guard against.
That attitude could be felt Saturday as moderate candidates floundered while those further to the right enjoyed more delegate support.
While chairing the lengthy convention, Jorgensen fielded multiple inquiries about the finer points of Robert’s Rules of Order and also strove to remain candidate-neutral as he oversaw various races.
No easy task – but he seemed up to the job. When asked last week about how he maintained an even keel, Jorgensen credited life’s lessons and his ability to put things into perspective.
“I grew up different than most people … life was not easy on the ranch and still isn’t,” Jorgensen said. But at the end of the day, he said he understands that “there are bigger things and the world moves on regardless of what we do.”
While some Utahns would like to see the party be more tolerant of those who don’t fit within its platform, others had hoped to tighten those confines even further Saturday.
That portion of the agenda – dealing with parental authority and more limited abortion rights – got pushed to a future date due to the long day and the ultimate lack of a delegate quorum.
Both heady and heavy
Reached by phone last Friday, Stan Lockhart – who chaired the state Republican Party from 2007 to 2009 – described how he viewed that role and what it was like to run his first statewide convention.
“The first job of the party chairman is to raise money,” Lockhart said, noting he raised over $1 million during his time on the job. “I got to get up and run the convention, but in the end it was the staff that did all the work. And there’s so much to it … so many moving pieces.”
They were able to offset some convention costs by selling booth space and asking delegates for money, “but in the end, none of that pays for the entire cost of it,” Lockhart said.
Lockhart was married to Becky Lockhart, who served in Utah’s House of Representatives from 1999 to 2014 – her final three years there as the chamber’s first female speaker. She died in January 2015 from a rare brain disease.
Lockhart has since remarried and began running marathons. But he said he still stays involved in a party that’s admittedly changing.
“Between me as party chair and (Becky) as speaker of the House, we were right in the middle of all the decisions being made in the state of Utah regarding government,” Lockhart said. “It’s weighty in the sense that there’s a lot of responsibility … but it is also thrilling to be able to be there while they’re making decisions. You’re part of a group of people who are literally driving the state of Utah into the future.”
