SALT LAKE CITY — While characterized by its diverse membership, the big tent of the Utah Democratic Party currently contains very few elected government officials. But candidates seeking the party’s top offices intend to boost those numbers.
The imbalance is stark: at the federal level, Republicans hold all of Utah’s four congressional seats and two senate slots. And the GOP enjoys a supermajority in the Utah Legislature, holding 23 of 29 senate seats and 58 of 75 House seats.
But in Utah’s most metropolitan areas — Salt Lake City and Salt Lake County in particular — Democrats still get the chance to govern.
The afternoon of June 26, over 2,000 Democratic delegates will cast votes for party chair, vice-chair, secretary and treasurer in the party’s second virtual convention since COVID-19 hit the state in early 2020.
Those elections will cap off a week of virtual trainings, caucus sessions and pre-recorded speeches from the candidates vying to steer the party through the next two critical years.
View the convention schedule here: https://convention.utahdemocrats.org/calendar/
Who’s running?
- Chair: Incumbent Jeff Merchant and challenger Daniel Hicken
- Vice-Chair: Incumbent Nadia Mahallati and challenger Diane Lewis
- Secretary: Jill Fellow, Melissa Lindsay and Chelsea Kilpack.
- Treasurer: Incumbent Sheila Srivastava, James Brunkow and Catherine Chansamone Costanzo
Mission Control
State Chair incumbent Jeff Merchant took the party’s reins in July 2019 when Utah Democrats still struggled to rebound from sexual harassment allegations that surfaced in 2017.
“The party was in a lot of chaos,” Merchant said. “We had about $120,000 in debt, only one staff member, and our data — which is the basis for running quality elections — was in shambles.”
So Merchant set out to turn things around, skills he routinely practiced in the business world.
“Over the last two years we’ve gotten out of debt, we now have well over $200,000 in the bank to work on various projects, and we hired four staff members,” Merchant said. “And our data is in better shape than it’s ever been.”
Merchant now hopes to get back to the party’s core mission.
“I’m running again because now we’re in a position to start actually doing what the party is designed to do,” Merchant said. “With staff, money and good data, we can start winning elections again.”
Merchant’s challenger, Daniel Hicken, has chaired the Utah County Democrats since 2017.
Republican blood pumps through the veins of most Utah County folks, but Hicken holds hope that Democrats can gain ground.
“Four precincts in the heart of Provo went for Biden in 2020,” Hicken said.
Similar to Merchant, Hicken said he focused on rebuilding the Utah County party.
“When I took over, we had a negative bank balance and very few volunteers,”
Hicken said. But now he touts their very active executive and steering committees along with four identity caucuses. “We had zero identity caucuses when I started.”
But Hicken, a self-described coalition builder, took aim at Merchant’s “top-down” management style.
“In this volunteer organization, unfortunately that doesn’t work very well,” Hicken said. “For us to have solid and continued growth, we have to have people who feel empowered, who feel trusted” rather than micro-managed.
Distorted districts
Party turmoil aside, both Hicken and Merchant point to gerrymandering as a key factor in the state’s partisan imbalance.
“I was the third employee hired by (former Congressman) Jim Matheson for his first campaign in 2000,” Merchant said. Matheson won that race and Merchant went to work with him in D.C. for the next two years.
“Then, when redistricting happened, his district went from being entirely within Salt Lake County to part of Salt Lake, part of Wasatch, Duchesne, Daggett — all the way to the eastern side of the state, all the way down the Colorado border and then all the way across the Arizona Border,” Merchant said. “So kind of a gigantic backwards C.”
So Merchant returned to Utah to “build new relationships” for Matheson, which meant traveling around the state to hear from residents in areas like Vernal, Monticello, St. George and Cedar City. After all, their needs differed from those along the denser and more populous Wasatch Front.
The upshot was that Matheson had to adjust his priorities accordingly.
“That’s one of many examples of how hard it becomes to legislate on behalf of people when the constituencies are so different,” Merchant said.
Hicken witnessed a similar impact on former Congressman Ben McAdams as he helped him campaign in deep red Utah County
“Gerrymandering is absolutely a factor in the GOP’s supermajority in Utah,” Hicken said. “Why else would Millcreek be lumped in with Eagle Mountain and Juab? They are very different places.”
With redistricting in progress again this year, Merchant said the party invested $90,000 in data last year and another $120,000 in 2021.
“We have all this data regarding precincts and voting patterns,” Hicken said, hoping it steers their efforts to select viable candidates.
“You have to have people who represent their district,” Hicken said.
Building strength
During a quick phone interview, Merchant laid out his top priorities for the next two years.
“One is fighting for fair redistricting and ending gerrymandering in the state of Utah,” Merchant said. “The second is to refocus on winning municipal races.”
The COVID-19 pandemic drove home the importance of local government as public health and revitalization efforts fell largely to city and county officials.
“We saw that happen throughout the country as municipalities stood up and did what the federal and state governments were frankly incapable of doing on their own,” Merchant said.
And of course, the 2022 elections loom large on the horizon.
“They could be a pretty big deal,” Merchant said.
For Hicken, increasing the pool of small-dollar donors and rebranding the party rank high on his to-do list.
While big-dollar donors help pay staff and do larger infrastructure outlays, small-dollar donations help people have skin in the game, Hicken said.
On rebranding, Hicken believes Democrats have been maligned in the media and hopes to launch an “I’m a Utah Democrat” website that illustrates the party’s goodness.
“We are people like you — we like to shop in the stores, make sure the air is clean for our kids, we want good schools for them to learn in so they can grow up safe and become good, happy adults,” Hicken said. “We’re not marxists trying to kill all the babies.”
And lastly, he hopes to set the stage for future party leaders.
“You see people give so much, and they need time to recharge. So you’ve got to have people who can step up and take the wheel behind you,” Hicken said.
Clean up the past?
The vice-chair contest had an unexpected surprise, with incumbent Nadia Mahallati suspending her campaign in May — but not dropping out. Challenger Diane Lewis declined to comment on Mahallati’s decision to stop campaigning.
Mahallati explained that it dates back to the 2017 scandal when under her then-married name Bowman, she ran for the state Democratic Party chair slot against Rob Miller and seven other candidates.
By early June of that year, a letter surfaced signed by seven female members who came forward with allegations of sexual misconduct against Miller. He denied any wrongdoing and believed the allegations were politically motivated — several of the complainants were friends with Mahallati.
A week later, Miller — a party stalwart — dropped his bid for chair and faced public shunning at the June 17 convention. The former insider had become a pariah and Miller soon left the party altogether.
But the tumult ripped through the party like a tornado.
“Rob believes that I worked with these women to make up allegations because I wanted to defeat him in the chair’s race,” Mahallati said, claiming that was not the case. Nevertheless, she said party leaders have not supported her current bid for re-election as vice-chair.
“Instead people in positions of power try to act like this never happened or isn’t a big deal,” Mahallati said.
Hicken also played a role in the “messy situation.”
“I was the trial manager during the initial review of the complaint filed back in 2017,” Hicken said, adding that questions came up about whether it fell within the party’s jurisdiction. “If so, we’d put it to the Central Committee for a vote. But that was shelved and never came to fruition.”
But Hicken believes the party should seek a solution “so that Rob can move on and all the complainants can move on.”
Mahallati’s frustration also stems from the state party failing to follow its anti-harassment policies and procedures, she said, noting that she personally used a similar version as chair of the Salt Lake County party’s judicial committee.
“I’ve overseen several complaints that were investigated and resolved quickly, fairly, and confidentially,” Mahallati said.
Why be a Democrat?
For both Mahallati and Lewis, the Democratic mantra seems woven into their DNA. As high-achieving women, they’re eager to crack glass ceilings.
“I believe in the values of our party, that we fight for every person, not just those that are already privileged and advantaged,” Mahallati said. “I care deeply about marginalized communities, and am a member of some of them.”
The daughter of an Iranian immigrant, Mahallati earned a law degree, but found her true passion in teaching college civics classes.
For Lewis, being a Democrat centers on helping people laboring in the trenches.
“When we talk about policy, I think that Democrats want to do the right things for the people, not for themselves,” Lewis said. “If you look over the years, you’ll see that the Democrats care more about giving back to working families.”
When Lewis moved to Utah about 22 years ago, her sister advised her to join a union so she could get equal pay for doing the same work as her male counterparts. Lewis took that advice and joined Laborers Local 295 while taking construction classes.
Eventually she ran for the Union’s business manager position and got elected.
“I was the first woman business manager in Utah in a construction trades union,” Lewis said. “It’s been labeled man’s work, but I think that we as women can pretty much do what we choose to do.”
She served in that position for 11 years until retiring in 2020.
Forging ahead
If elected vice-chair, Lewis aims to strengthen labor unions in Utah and bring them back into the Democratic party.
“That’s who fought for us, the unions and the Democrats,” Lewis said.
And she also hopes to expand the role of vice-chair to strengthen the party.
“The vice-chair supports the chair when that chair is not available and steps in when needed,” Lewis said. “I want to make it bigger, where I can be the liaison between the state and county parties. Because I think we can build Utah.”
In her recent travels around the state, Lewis saw the importance of helping people where they are.
“In Salt Lake County we have the clean air message, which is absolutely necessary here,” Lewis said. “But then when you get into the rural parts of Utah they need the oil jobs. It’s important that we help them find work when we’re taking things away from them.”
Mahallati said she’s seeking a second term as vice-chair because of the longstanding relationships she’s built with Democrats around the state.
“Foks know they can call me, that I’ll be honest and answer their questions,” Mahallati said.
And she also believes it’s time to blaze a few trails.
“A lot of Democrats want to stick with the status quo because they think it’s as good as we can do. They’re risk-averse to trying something new because it may not work,” Mahallati said. “However, what we’re doing doesn’t work.”
In the American government class she teaches at Salt Lake Community College, Mahallati teaches students how to register to vote and navigate election websites. And she also has her students talk to voters about who represents them and if they feel represented by that person.
“I focus on the lasting takeaways they’ll have from my class that will make them better participants in civil society,” Mahallati said. After all, “local government is where change happens.”
