The decision to stand behind McMullin could help boost his candidacy for the Senate at a time when Lee is on the defensive over newly leaked text messages showing he communicated for weeks with then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows about efforts to repeal the Senate. elections in 2020. Party delegates voted 57% to 43% on Saturday at their congress in Murray, Utah, so as not to nominate their own candidate. Former State Department official Kael Weston sought Democrat approval for the US Senate.
“Today, Utah Democrats voted to join Evan McMullin’s inter-party coalition and not nominate a candidate in the interim race for the 2022 U.S. Senate,” McMullin’s campaign statement said Saturday. “This is the first time in Utah’s history that the Democratic Party has not nominated a candidate to run across the state, choosing instead to put a state before a party.
Weston said he respected the decision. “Let’s all help elect other Democrats this year. And let’s all help defeat Mike Lee – the sooner the better,” he said on Twitter. Lee, who is running for a third term in November, remains a favorite in dark red Utah, backing then-President Donald Trump by more than 20 points in 2020. Democrats have not won a U.S. Senate election in Utah since 1970. Lee also has a strong an advantage over McMullin, according to their latest documents in the Federal Election Commission. The senator faces a primary election in June against two Republicans, former U.S. Attorney Becky Edwards and former U.S. government official Ali Izom, who qualified for the vote by submitting the required number of signatures. for president in 2016 as a conservative against Trump. While he received less than 1% of the vote, his candidacy won about 22% of the vote in Utah, his best performance from any state.
“I am humble and grateful to the delegates of the Democratic Party today for their decision to support this growing inter-party coalition,” McMullin said on Saturday. “Today, and moving forward, this coalition represents the majority of Utah residents who want to replace Senator Mike Lee. He is a threat to the republic and has consistently failed to represent our interests and our values. “
Former Utah spokesman Ben McAdams, who lost his re-election in 2020 after serving one term, was among state Democrats actively involved in trying to get his party not to nominate a congressional candidate. He wrote in a Facebook post on Sunday that he was “proud to be part of Evan’s growing coalition of independents, Democrats and Republicans. Together we can win this race and defeat Senator Mike Lee.”
McAdams himself was looking to run for the Senate, but said he eventually voted against it after seeing his own poll on how difficult it would be to win as a Democrat in a longtime Republican state.
CNN reported earlier this month that texts between Lee and Meadows showed a series of reports beginning just days after the 2020 election, in which Lee initially expressed support for challenging the election results. In early December 2020, the senator began sending text messages to Meadows about the idea that the United States could submit to Congress alternative lists of voters supporting Trump on January 6, 2021.
But in statements after the uprising, Lee gave the impression that he was simply observing the activities of the states, as opposed to promoting the idea of individual voters in Meadows.
In an interview last week with Utah-based Deseret News, Lee defended himself and tried to dismiss the story that he was working for the cancellation of the election or that he was working on behalf of the White House. “At no point in any of them have I advocated,” Lee said of calls he made to states about whether they were presenting alternative voter lists.
“I did not encourage them in any way to do that. I just asked them yes or no,” he told Deseret News.
CNN’s Dan Merica, Annie Grayer and Lauren Fox contributed to this report.
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