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{"id":24747,"date":"2026-06-24T02:32:20","date_gmt":"2026-06-24T02:32:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/former-utah-rep-ben-mcadams-is-on-track-to-return-to-congress\/"},"modified":"2026-06-24T02:32:20","modified_gmt":"2026-06-24T02:32:20","slug":"former-utah-rep-ben-mcadams-is-on-track-to-return-to-congress","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/former-utah-rep-ben-mcadams-is-on-track-to-return-to-congress\/","title":{"rendered":"Former Utah Rep. Ben McAdams is on track to return to Congress"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p>Former Rep. Ben McAdams won his primary Tuesday, paving the way for his return to Congress.<\/p>\n<p>McAdams, a moderate, staved off <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.com\/news\/2025\/11\/17\/utah-democrats-got-a-gift-now-comes-the-headache-00653575\" target=\"_blank\">a roster of progressive challengers<\/a> in Utah\u2019s newly redrawn 1st District, a rare deep-blue Salt Lake City district in a deep-red state that came as a result of a messy, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.com\/newsletters\/playbook\/2025\/12\/28\/utahs-redistricting-long-game-00706994\" target=\"_blank\">decadelong redistricting saga<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>McAdams will enter November as the heavy favorite in a district former Vice President Kamala Harris won by nearly 24 points in 2024.<\/p>\n<p>McAdams won a GOP-leaning seat in the 2018 Democratic wave and governed as a centrist, Blue Dog Democrat who pushed for <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sltrib.com\/news\/politics\/2019\/04\/09\/democratic-rep-ben\/\" target=\"_blank\">a balanced budget amendment<\/a> \u2014 but he lost his reelection bid in 2020. He was one of the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.com\/news\/2025\/08\/29\/democrats-seize-on-utah-in-redistricting-war-00535242\" target=\"_blank\">first Democrats to signal interest<\/a> in running in the new 1st District and quickly garnered support from Utah elected officials and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.com\/news\/2025\/10\/31\/centrist-democrats-utah-house-00631729\" target=\"_blank\">national centrist Democrats<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>His progressive opponents attempted to paint him as too conservative, pointing to his previous mixed record on abortion. One opponent, state Sen. Nate Blouin, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sltrib.com\/news\/politics\/2026\/05\/26\/nate-blouin-says-hell-drop-out\/\" target=\"_blank\">called on the other candidates<\/a> to consolidate their support behind one person to avoid splitting the progressive vote. None agreed, and McAdams \u2014 who raised more money <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sltrib.com\/news\/politics\/2026\/06\/18\/democrats-trailing-ben-mcadams\/\" target=\"_blank\">than the three other Democrats combined<\/a> \u2014 prevailed.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Former Rep. Ben McAdams won his primary Tuesday, paving the way for his return to Congress. McAdams, a moderate, staved off a roster of progressive challengers in Utah\u2019s newly redrawn 1st District, a rare deep-blue Salt Lake City district in a deep-red state that came as a result of a messy, decadelong redistricting saga. McAdams [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24747","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-congress"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24747","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24747"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24747\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24747"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24747"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24747"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}