Lyman, Johnson win GOP primary elections, oust incumbents
Millard County will seat two new county commissioners in January after both incumbents lost to political newcomers during the GOP primary election last week.
Commission Chair Evelyn Warnick, seeking a second term, lost her reelection campaign to challenger Vicki Lyman, who is not expected to face any opposition in the November general election. Potential write-in candidates still have until Sept. 5 at 5 p.m. to file a notice of candidacy with the county clerk’s office.
Incumbent Dean Draper’s bid for a third term was ended by GOP challenger Trevor Johnson, who is expected to face off against United Utah candidate Johny Munoz for Draper’s seat in November.
Johnson and Lyman each won their races by several hundred votes, according to unofficial figures released Thursday by the county clerk’s office.
Their wins were a resounding defeat for two incumbents who successfully steered Millard County through the COVID pandemic and were in the midst of leading the county through a critical time for its public finances.
An extreme shift in property taxes due to the plummeting valuation of Intermountain Power Project, the county’s largest single taxpayer, has sent property taxes skyrocketing for area small businesses and homeowners. That shift is not expected to subside for at least two more years.
Lyman and Johnson are both full-time employees of Intermountain Power.
Draper and Warnick both supported changes in state law that stripped Intermountain Power of a number of statutory protections it enjoyed for years and years, which likely contributed to the incumbents’ losses at the polls.
Both Draper and Warnick were cordial about their losses when reached by the Chronicle Progress.
Draper said voters had made their choice and it was their decision. Warnick said she was fine with the outcome of the race and hopeful the next six months would aid in a smooth transition for the newcomers.
Still, the county is engaged in an expensive tax appeals process involving Intermountain Power Agency and its IPP tax assessments going clear back to 2014. IPA officials and county commissioners both have previously said they have traded offers in an attempt to negotiate a settlement of their differences over taxes. How the election results will impact those negotiations remains to be seen.
Meanwhile, in other election news, Fillmore resident and Utah State School Board of Education member Mark Huntsman lost his bid for the legislative seat left vacant by retiring state Rep. Merrill Nelson.
Huntsman won Millard County’s vote for the newly realigned District 29 seat, but the new district includes large swaths of Juab and Tooele counties as well. That is where Bridger Bolinder, Huntsman’s GOP primary opponent, picked up enough votes to win the Republican nomination. Bolinder won by a margin of 1,361 votes, according to unofficial results released by the Lieutenant Governor’s Office last week.
Bolinder will face two opponents in November’s general election: Democrat Chris Dyer and Constitution Party candidate Kirk Pearson.
In the other multi-county primary election affecting Millard County, incumbent state Sen. Evan Vickers bested newcomer Patrick Larson by more than 7,700 votes in the District 28 contest. The newly realigned district is composed of portions of five counties, including Juab, Iron, Beaver and Washington counties.
Vickers will face two opponents in November: Libertarian Party candidate Barry Evan Short and United Utah candidate Patricia Bradford.
The only other local contest taking place last week was between one incumbent and two challengers for the District 5 Millard School Board seat held by Todd Holt. Holt and challenger Sarah Richins received 300 and 299 votes, respectively. Challenger Ashel Young received 97 votes.
Holt and Richins will face each other again in the November general election.
In statewide federal primaries, GOP incumbents won across the board against their party’s challengers.
U.S. Sen. Mike Lee received more than double the votes earned by his nearest challenger, Becky Edwards, in his primary race for election to a third term.
Lee faces a potentially much tougher opponent come November in independent candidate Evan McMullin, who has already won the backing of Utah’s Democrats.
U.S. Rep. Chris Stewart joined his colleagues in the Utah U.S. House delegation, who all also bested GOP challengers last week.
The closest contest was in U.S. House District 1, between Rep. Blake Moore and challenger Andrew Badger. Moore received almost 58 percent of the vote to Badger’s 28 percent. Stewart won his primary with 72 percent of the vote to challenger Erin Rider’s 27 percent. Rep. John Curtis won his primary with 70 percent and Rep. Burgess Owens his with 62 percent.
In Millard County, voter turnout among Republicans was just less than 57 percent. By comparison, in the county’s 2018 GOP primary election, 73 percent of Republican voters cast ballots.
Nonpartisan participation was a meager 16 percent, not surprising given the GOP holds a closed primary, meaning only voters affiliated with that party can cast votes in its primary election. The low turnout among non-Republicans likely reflects the votes cast in the school board race, which is not party-affiliated. It was also only open to voters living inside the board’s District 5.
County elections officials plan to make last Tuesday’s vote official after canvassing is complete on July 8.
An audit of affidavit signatures and ballot batches will be held July 7 at 2 p.m. at the Clerk’s Office in Fillmore. This is open to the public.
According to the clerk’s elections website, 25 provisional ballots, 78 mail-in ballots and 152 signature challenges—where voter’s either need to present their identification for their vote to count or because their ballot was turned in unsigned—could all be counted toward the final, official results once the canvass is complete.
