Politics
A MAGA push to erase a Dem House seat is triggering accusations of fraud and violence in Utah
National Republicans are throwing money and bodies at a down-ballot initiative to try to wrest back a congressional seat in Utah. Their efforts could blow up in their face.
With a looming February 15 deadline, Republicans have seen only half the number of verified signatures they need to move things forward. And the effort, which has the backing of President Donald Trump and support from multiple MAGA groups, has devolved into chaos.
Local county clerks are flagging hundreds of potentially fraudulent submissions. People have reportedly been repeatedly misled into signing the petition by signature-gatherers, with some telling local news outlets that they were told it was an anti-ICE petition. Those signature-gatherers have reported being assaulted by hecklers and their signature packets stolen or destroyed.
In the Beehive State, where politics are often seen by outsiders as cartoonishly friendly, this effort has turned so tumultuous that Republican Gov. Spencer Cox — who earned national attention for his pleas for civility after conservative influencer Charlie Kirk was assassinated in the state — called on Utahns to “resolve [their] disagreements peacefully.”
While the GOP groups insist they’ll have the numbers needed, they’re still far short — which would represent a major failure in a ruby-red state.
The effort aims to overturn a new judge-ordered congressional map that hands Democrats one safe blue seat by attempting to repeal an anti-gerrymandering law that would allow the Republican-controlled legislature to reinstall a more favorable map ahead of the 2028 elections. It has garnered support from Trump and his allies, who had already spent $4.3 million on the effort as of November — and have only ramped up since.
The signature-gathering initiative represents an early test of Republicans’ ground-game efforts in a midterm year where they face strong headwinds in the polls.
Trump and his son, Donald Trump Jr, have signaled support to the Utah initiative, with Trump recently encouraging his Truth Social followers to support the “very important effort” to ”KEEP UTAH RED.”
Turning Point Action — the 501(c)(4) founded by the late Charlie Kirk, who was killed in the state last summer — is “all in” on the effort, its COO said, and is canvassing the state with a half-dozen events over the next week. A fleet of about 700 paid workers, many of them from out of state, have been hired to gather signatures, bankrolled by Securing American Greatness Inc., a 501(c)(4) previously run by former Trump White House official Taylor Budowich. And MAGA celebrity Scott Presler parachuted in last month for a series of events.
But so far, those efforts don’t appear to be paying off. As of Friday, the initiative had garnered just over 76,000 verified signatures, about half of the more than 140,000 required statewide for a measure to be added to this November’s ballot. A daily analysis conducted by independent journalist Bryan Schott shows the initiative on track to fall well short of the required signature thresholds: eight percent of all active registered voters statewide, and eight percent in at least 26 of the 29 Utah state Senate districts.
“The only thing that will matter is on the very last day, do we have enough signatures, and I strongly believe that we will,” said Brad Bonham, a Republican National Committeeman and initiative sponsor.
The initiative’s Republican backers claim the lagging signature count is part of their strategy. Bonham said the initiative’s sponsors have “many, many thousands of signatures” they are independently verifying and have not yet submitted. Utah Republican Party Chairman Rob Axson said “many tens of thousands” more have been submitted to county clerks and are undergoing verification.
“We feel very, very good about the strategy that we are executing on and the momentum that we’re building,” Axson said.
Dropping a large tranche of signatures close to the February 15 deadline could backfire, said Elizabeth Rasmussen, the executive director of Better Boundaries, the anti-gerrymandering group opposing the repeal, as signers still have a 45-day window after their signature is verified to remove it.
Rasmussen said her group mailed nearly 8,000 letters last week to petition signers encouraging them to remove their names, and will continue to do so in coming weeks. Her groups’ previous efforts have led to over 500 signatures removed, Rasmussen said.
And she’s not so sure that Trump’s involvement will help the GOP in a heavily conservative state whose voters nonetheless have long been skeptical of the president.
“Trump’s approval rating in Utah is at an all-time low,” Rasmussen said. “We’re not seeing that as a value add, if anything.”
The ongoing saga in Utah is an odd addendum to the nationwide redistricting push. In 2018, Utah voters passed Proposition 4, a ballot measure that created an independent redistricting commission to prevent partisan gerrymandering. Earlier this year, District Judge Dianna Gibson ruled that the GOP-controlled state legislature failed to comply with Prop 4 when it drew four safe Republican districts in the 2022 map. The GOP submitted another map with four safe seats last fall, but the judge selected a different map, which includes a blue seat in Salt Lake County, in November.
The GOP-controlled state legislature is appealing Gibson’s decision to the state Supreme Court, and two sitting U.S. House members joined a federal lawsuit pushing for the current, Republican-friendly map to be used in 2026. The state GOP’s signature-gathering push would repeal Prop 4 and allow the legislature to redraw a map ahead of the 2028 cycle.
If they meet the requisite signature threshold, the initiative will go on the ballot this November, where voters will decide.
In Utah County, the state’s second-most-populous county, the clerk’s office has flagged hundreds of signatures for possible fraud. Some appear to be forged signatures, and when the clerk’s office called the signers, they denied ever signing the petition; others appear to be made-up names and addresses.
“I think it’s just the signature gatherers that are doing this are just trying to find an easy way to make money,” Aaron Davidson, the Utah County Clerk, told Blue Light News.
The Salt Lake and Davis county clerks — the first- and third-most populous counties in the state — said they have not seen any significant irregularities. “The number of alleged fraudulent voters that Utah County has found, that is startling,” said Lannie Chapman, the Salt Lake County clerk. “We all take this very seriously.”
Axson, the GOP state chair, said some of the signature-gatherers under review were flagged by his team before submission, and several paid signature-gatherers who are under review for fraud have been fired. “I don’t want a single fraudulent signature counted,” Axson said.
“Are there going to be a couple of bad actors, or bad examples, or places where the process has fallen short, or whatnot? Of course there are,” added Axson. “But what’s not being talked about in all of these stories is the fact that out of 3,000 people engaged in this effort, you only have a small handful of bad actors.”
But as the signature push enters its home stretch, tensions have only accelerated.
“Violence is not the answer to any of this. I don’t understand anybody that would do that,” added Bonham, the initiative sponsor. “It brings me back to Charlie Kirk losing his life here in our own backyard. It’s like, what on earth is going on here?”
Missouri’s Supreme Court suspended a congressional map that state Republicans drew last year that would have netted the GOP an additional House seat, likely keeping the seat in Democratic hands this November.
The court ruled unanimously on Thursday that a referendum petition organized by Democrats to put the new congressional maps to a vote was incorrectly deemed insufficient by Republican Secretary of State Denny Hoskins, and ordered that the gerrymandered map be put to a vote in the fall.
Voters will ultimately decide the fate of the new lines in November. But in the meantime, it cannot be in place for the midterms, meaning Rep. Emanuel Cleaver’s original Kansas City-based district will likely stay in Democrats’ hands this fall.
Construction crews could begin the excavation process for what will be President Donald Trump’s massive 250-foot-tall arch in as soon as the next two weeks, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum announced on Thursday.
The monument — which will be erected in a traffic circle at the head of the Memorial Bridge over the Potomac River, coming between the Lincoln Memorial and Arlington Cemetery — has generated controversy as concerns emerged about the design and traffic congestion during construction.
The arch would take two to three years to construct on the proposed schedule, according to documents released in June.
“We are pleased to announce that after a very long wait (over 125 years!), we are preparing to start, over the next two-week period, the excavation work necessary for the Great Triumphal Arch and Military Observation Deck,” Burgum said in a social media post.
The 250-foot-tall arch will be among Trump’s most visible projects, as the administration continues its attempts to remake Washington. Critics, however, have voiced fears that the structure may be too large, and overshadow other monuments, like the Lincoln Memorial on the other side of the Potomac River.
The proposed arch will dwarf the Arc de Triomphe in Paris in size. It is unclear at this time how much construction will cost; the National Endowment for the Humanities earmarked $15 million for the monument.
“This will be one the the Great Pieces of American Architecture, honoring the history and significance of Arlington National Cemetery and befitting the most powerful Capital in the World,” Burgum said.
The monument will be constructed on land overseen by the National Park Service, and critics have argued Trump’s latest project requires explicit congressional approval. However, the Interior secretary continues to rebut these claims.
Instead, Burgum echoed previous statements and said historically “Congress and various congressionally chartered commissions decreed that a monumental work should adorn Columbia Island,” the traffic circle where the monument is planned to be constructed.
“Despite Congress’s intent, the site became and remains today a barren traffic circle lacking any monumental treatment and significant historic value,” he said.
Former Vice President Kamala Harris is revving up her involvement in the midterms. While some Democrats are eager to embrace her, others want her to steer clear.
Harris is planning to attend a canvass launch with Nevada Attorney General Aaron Ford for his gubernatorial bid next month in Las Vegas, his campaign told Blue Light News.
“As anyone who is interested in 2028 should do, Kamala Harris will be coming through. We are a pivotal state in the presidential election,” Ford said in an interview in Las Vegas on Tuesday. “2028 starts right now in 2026.”
Harris’ plans to visit Nevada signal yet another step into the fray of the midterms — and the national political stage. On Tuesday, she publicly backed Rep. Chris Pappas in his Senate bid in New Hampshire, a must-hold seat for the party in a state that Harris narrowly won in 2024. And she waded into three House races, two Democratic-leaning districts in her home state and a solidly Republican one in Tennessee.
Harris had kept a relatively low profile so far on the campaign trail. Some Democrats prefer it that way.
Iowa’s two most prominent Democratic candidates have said they do not want Harris to campaign for them. Alaska’s Democratic Senate nominee rejected a fundraising solicitation Harris sent on her behalf. And a swing-district Democrat in Wisconsin and a long-shot Senate hopeful in Kansas both told Blue Light News they would prefer Harris keep her distance.
“I received 9,000 more votes than Harris in 2024,” Rebecca Cooke, the Democratic challenger to Republican Rep. Derrick Van Orden in western Wisconsin, said in a statement when asked by Blue Light News. “I don’t need anyone to come and campaign with me in my district. I do the work of building relationships — including across the aisle — on my own.”
The arm’s-length treatment isn’t necessarily surprising: red-state and rural Democrats have long been hesitant to tie themselves to national Democratic figures. They are increasingly distancing themselves now as polls show the Democratic brand remains underwater even as President Donald Trump’s own standing with voters continues to drop. Trump’s approval hit a weak 36 percent in a recent poll conducted by The Economic and YouGov, while a separate survey from the pollster showed over 56 percent of registered voters disapproved of the Democratic Party.
Harris’ favorability numbers at the end of last year only stood at 42 percent. As the party’s most recent presidential nominee, she is one of its most prominent avatars.
A Cooke campaign aide, granted anonymity to discuss internal conversations, said Cooke’s team has turned down campaign offers from other national Democrats as she focuses on making a personal case to voters in one of the party’s top target districts this fall.
Cooke hasn’t warded off everyone, however: During her primary she leaned heavily into support from Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), featuring him in campaign ads; his team also sent texts to help turn out voters. She also has accepted endorsements from potential 2028 candidates like former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and Sens. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.) and Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.).
Other high-profile Democrats, like California Gov. Gavin Newsom, have similarly stayed relatively low-key with their own endorsements so far. He’s faced some Democratic distancing himself: Stefany Shaheen, who is running for a House seat in New Hampshire, emphasized her support from Granite Staters when asked about a fundraising email the governor sent on her behalf last month.
Harris, like other potential presidential candidates, needs to build a network of friends and favors — much of which she has already developed from her own runs for Senate, the White House and her four years as vice president — while staying relevant. She retains a powerful fundraising network that can help down-ticket Democrats, too.
But in many parts of the country where she lost, her involvement could be a drag for Democrats otherwise facing strong political tailwinds in the midterms.
“It’s all good,” Eduardo Negrón, a spokesperson for Harris, said in a statement. “Vice President Harris will continue to raise money and travel on behalf of candidates in races where she can help make a difference. With Trump so unpopular and our deep bench of strong candidates, we are now seeing deeply red states in play this cycle. The Vice President believes we should be ruthless about competing everywhere and that means giving candidates in tough races the space to do whatever it takes to win.”
Harris’ recent ramp-up marks a shift from what had been an otherwise quiet midterms strategy that has focused primarily on standing by close preexisting relationships. It’s strikingly different from other potential 2028 presidential candidates who’ve endorsed more widely and been more prominent on the campaign trail.
One of the few times she did weigh into a contested primary was for Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-Texas) — a co-chair of her 2024 presidential campaign — in her bid for Texas Senate. The vice president’s support came in the form of a robo-call released just days before the primary rather than an in-person appearance, and she quickly backed James Talarico shortly after he won the nomination. She also threw her support behind Michigan Democratic nominee Abdul El-Sayed after a bruising primary that has left Democrats scrambling to project unity heading into the general election.
Red-state Democrats have been particularly pointed in their calls to keep Harris out of their races.
“In Kansas, you’re trying to reach 45 percent of the state who are Republicans and a lot of really good people who are Republicans, but their vantage point or their worldview may be a bit different than Kamala Harris’,” Kansas Democratic Senate nominee Adam Hamilton told Blue Light News. “What I’m looking at is I’m really mounting a very Kansas-centered campaign, and I’m out speaking, I tell people I’m running as an independent-minded Democrat.”
Hamilton is running an uphill battle in a state that hasn’t sent a Democrat to the Senate since 1932. The state is seen as potentially somewhat in play amid the ongoing war in Iran, trade wars with close allies and a persistent cost of living crisis that have cut especially deep in agricultural territory.
But that doesn’t mean a coastal Democrat like Harris would play well in the conservative heartland.
“Having somebody from California come in and try to tell Kansans who they should vote for is a pretty bad idea,” Hamilton said. Harris has not endorsed in the race.
Other Democrats have taken similar tones toward Harris in recent days. In an interview with Blue Light News, Iowa State Auditor Rob Sand said he would not want the former vice president to appear with him as he runs for governor, adding that the country needed “new leadership.”
State Rep. Josh Turek, speaking with reporters after an event for his Senate campaign in Cedar Rapids, broadcasted an even more blunt answer to the same question: “No,” he said flatly, letting out a laugh.
A similar scenario played out in Alaska last month. After Harris’ team sent a fundraising email for Senate candidate and former Rep. Mary Peltola (D-Alaska) on the eve of the state’s primary election, a spokesperson for Peltola’s campaign told a local Alaska television station that she “isn’t seeking endorsements from anyone from the Lower 48.” Peltola’s campaign did not respond to Blue Light News’s questions on the matter.
Campaign spokespeople for several battleground Senate Democrats locked in high-profile races, including El-Sayed in Michigan, Troy Jackson in Maine and Roy Cooper in North Carolina — who have all received her support — declined to respond to requests for comment about how involved they would like the former vice president to be in their races.
Harris’ support isn’t an albatross for all Democrats, however. For some, her endorsement is welcome — and they want her out on the trail.
One key battleground Democrat (and a potential 2028 rival), Georgia Sen. Jon Ossoff, embraced Harris’ support with open arms. “Senator Ossoff is grateful for Vice President Harris’ help and support in his re-election campaign,” campaign spokesperson Ellie Dougherty said in a statement, adding that he would welcome her to Georgia to campaign alongside him or on his behalf.
Harris lost Georgia, but the rightward swing in the state was the smallest of any battleground — in large part because of a population boom in metro Atlanta and the large share of Black voters.
And in deep-blue Massachusetts, former Biden White House aide Dan Koh won an open House primary on Tuesday after running aggressively on support from Harris and President Joe Biden. Koh sought their support and featured them prominently in a campaign ad and in social media videos. He said scheduling didn’t work out for them to hit the trail, though.
“I will never run away from two people I admire greatly, who I believe did a lot of good for this country,” Koh said last week.
Jessica Piper contributed to this report.
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