Utah Legislature 2026 election night results: Here’s who is on track to win and lose

With a blue wave sweeping the nation, preliminary election night results in Utah show at least 15 Republican state lawmakers could be on track to lose reelection to Democrats and one unaffiliated candidate.

If the results hold — election results aren’t final until canvassing is completed in two weeks — it’s possible Democrats could have broken the Republican supermajority in the House, but not in the Senate.

Republican incumbents were trailing to Democrats and one unaffiliated candidate in the following races:

Senate District 19: Incumbent Republican Senate Majority Leader Kirk Cullimore was trailing Democrat Shana Anderson, who had 56.7% of the vote to Cullimore’s 43.3%.

House District 3 : Unaffiliated candidate Patrick Belmont, with nearly 58% of the vote, was on track to unseat Rep. Jason Thompson, who had about 41%.

House District 4: Republican Rep. Tiara Auxier was trailing Democrat Zane Woolstenhulme, who had nearly 52% to her 48%.

House District 8: Democrat Kim James was leading Republican incumbent Rep. Jason Kyle, with 50% to Kyle’s 46%. Forward Party candidate Libby Shelton had nearly 3.9% of the vote.

House District 9: Republican incumbent Rep. Jake Sawyer was trailing Democrat Angela Choberka, who had nearly 54% to Sawyer’s 46%.

House District 20: Republican incumbent Rep. Melissa Ballard was trailing Democrat Phil Graves, who had nearly 52% to Ballard’s 48%.

House District 26: Rep. Matt Macpherson, of West Valley City, was trailing with only 36% of the vote to Democrat Michael Finch’s 64%.

House District 27: Rep. Anthony Loubet was trailing Democrat Liz Oats, who had 62.5% to Loubet’s 37.5%.

House District 36: Rep. Jim Dunnigan, R-Taylorsville, had 45.8% of the vote behind Democrat Blake Townsend, who had about 54%.

House District 39: Republican incumbent Rep. Ken Ivory was trailing Democrat Drew Howells, who had 59.3% of the vote to Ivory’s 40.7%.

House District 43: Republican incumbent Rep. Steve Eliason was on track to lose to Democrat Ofa Matagi, who had 55.7% to Eliason’s 44.3%.

House District 42: Republican Rep. Clint Okerlund was trailing Democrat Iva Williams, who had 55.8% to Okerlund’s 44.2%

House District 44: Republican Rep. Jordan Teuscher was trailing Democrat Jess Birtcher , who had 54% to Teuscher’s 46%.

House District 48: Republican incumbent Rep. Jake Hunsaker was trailing Democrat Benyde Walker. Walker had 51.4% of the vote to Hunsaker’s 48.5%.

House District 62: Republican Rep. Norm Thurston, with 44.6%, was trailing Democrat David Chappell, who had 55.4%

Democrats were also pacing to flip some open seats that were previously held by Republicans, and an unaffiliated candidate was on track to beat his Republican opponent.

Senate District 5: Democrat “CJ” Christina Hernandez was leading to flip the open District 5 from red to blue. She had more than 57% of the vote to Republican Jill Koford’s 42.7%. Koford left her seat in the House to vie for the seat left open by retired Sen. Ann Milner.

House District 10 : Democrat Rosemary Lesser had 63% of the vote to Republican Jim Alvey’s 36%, putting her on track to flip Koford’s former Republican seat.

House District 38: Unaffiliated candidate Sergio Sotelo was leading Republican Chris McConnehey. Sotelo had just over 56% of the vote to McConnehey’s nearly 44%.

At least three races had tight margins.

Senate District 11: Sen. Emily Buss — the Forward Party’s only sitting legislator in the country going into the race — was narrowly trailing with 49.84% of the vote to Republican Brooks Benson’s 50.16%. Earlier in the night, Buss was leading with razor thin margins.

House District 59: Democrat Celeste Johnson held a narrow lead against Republican Luke Searle. Johnson had 50.10% of the vote to Searle’s 49.90%.

House District 11: Republican incumbent Rep. Katy Hall had 50.54% of the vote to Democrat Dave Calder’s 49.46%.

A blue ‘tsunami’ in Utah?

From the Utah Republican Party’s election night watch party in Draper, Utah GOP Chair Rob Axson downplayed Democrats’ lead in many of the legislative races, telling Utah News Dispatch early election night results skewed Democratic and he expects legislative races to “change dramatically” as more votes are tallied.

“It’s too early of a snapshot,” he said. “I mean, obviously it’s always good to be in the lead from the start of the race to the end of the race, but the only thing that matters is when it’s finalized. So we’ll see where we are moving forward. But there’s a lot of really good candidates, and I’m confident that we’re going to have a great Republican legislature.”

Axson also acknowledged “it’s a very difficult election year” for Republicans, but he wouldn’t go as far as saying the national blue wave had hit Utah.

“I wouldn’t say that. We’ll have to see where the results are,” he said. “Certainly, Democrats have done well nationally. They’re going to outperform their traditional performance here locally. But until we’re done, it’s too early to say with the results we’re seeing so far.”

But from Democrats’ rowdy and ecstatic watch party in Salt Lake City, Utah Democratic Party Chair Brian King was giddy. He said as he watched national results roll in before Utah’s polls closed, he thought to himself: “Man, this is incredible. Could we be doing the same kind of thing in Utah? And we did.”

While also acknowledging that election night results are preliminary, King called the results “astonishing.”

“I thought we would pick up some seats, you know,” he said. “But we were thinking three, four, five, six seats, something like that. I never dreamed. … It wasn’t a wave election. It was a tsunami.”

King said “we had great candidates, people were fed up,” and the Utah Democratic Party “messaged well and delivered effectively.”

“I’m really gratified and thrilled with how many seats we flipped,” he said. “It’s pretty remarkable.”

In front of a cheering crowd, one of Utah’s top Democrats, House Minority Leader Angela Romero, said Utahns sent a clear message to the Utah GOP and the Utah Legislature: “Enough is enough.”

“But now is where our journey begins,” Romero said. “We just won. Maybe we broke the supermajority … (but) we need to listen to the people. Because we might have won this election, but that doesn’t mean we’ll win other elections. We, as Democrats, we listen to the people.”

Fifteen of Utah’s 29 state Senate districts and all 75 House districts were up for election this year.

Here’s a list of where unofficial election night results stand after polls closed at 8 p.m. on Tuesday. Results aren’t final until after the county and state canvass in two weeks.

Utah House

State House District 1

Thomas Peterson (Republican): 8,296 (69.59%)

Chris Reid (Democratic): 2,555 (21.43%)

Jason O’Dell (Constitution): 1,070 (8.98%)

State House District 2

Mike Petersen (Republican): 5,719 (60.65%)

Barbara J. Haggerty (Democratic): 3,710 (39.35%)

State House District 3

Patrick Belmont (Unaffiliated): 4,517 (58.77%)

Jason E. Thompson (Republican): 3,169 (41.23%)

State House District 4

Zane Woolstenhulme (Democratic): 4,799 (51.76%)

Tiara Auxier (Republican): 4,473 (48.24%)

State House District 5

Casey Snider (Republican): 6,421 (62.95%)

Kendra Penry (Democratic): 3,779 (37.05%)

State House District 6

Rob Bishop (Republican): 7,830 (68.42%)

James Rich (Forward): 3,614 (31.58%)

State House District 7

Ryan D. Wilcox (Republican): 5,217 (52.08%)

Bianca Mittendorf (Democratic): 4,801 (47.92%)

State House District 8

Kim James (Democratic): 5,911 (50.17%)

Jason B Kyle (Republican): 5,414 (45.96%)

Libby Shelton (Forward): 456 (3.87%)

State House District 9

Angela Choberka (Democratic): 4,669 (53.65%)

Jake Sawyer (Republican): 4,033 (46.35%)

State House District 10

Rosemary T Lesser (Democratic): 5,661 (62.95%)

Jim Alvey (Republican): 3,332 (37.05%)

State House District 11

Katy Hall (Republican): 4,506 (50.54%)

Dave Calder (Democratic): 4,410 (49.46%)

State House District 12

Mike Schultz (Republican): 5,878 (56.75%)

Anna Graff (Democratic): 4,480 (43.25%)

State House District 13

Erik R. Craythorne (Republican): 4,974 (52.71%)

Jeffrey Anderson (Democratic): 3,841 (40.71%)

Tony De Mille (Forward): 621 (6.58%)

State House District 14

John Taylor (Republican): 4,733 (54.44%)

Brandon Young (Democratic): 3,961 (45.56%)

State House District 15

Ariel Defay (Republican): 6,160 (59.89%)

Anne Berbert (Democratic): 4,126 (40.11%)

State House District 16

Bob J Stevenson (Republican): 5,128 (50.95%)

Abigail Treasure (Democratic): 4,936 (49.05%)

State House District 17

Lili Bitner (Republican): 6,272 (58.07%)

Eric Last (Democratic): 4,528 (41.93%)

State House District 18

Paul Cutler (Republican): 6,536 (58.52%)

Scott Troxel (Democratic): 4,633 (41.48%)

State House District 19

Raymond P. Ward (Republican): 8,258 (100.00%)

State House District 20

Phil Graves (Democratic): 4,691 (51.98%)

Melissa Ballard (Republican): 4,333 (48.02%)

State House District 21

Stephen Otterstrom (Democratic): 4,594 (100.00%)

State House District 22

Jen Dailey-Provost (Democratic): 8,359 (87.35%)

Char Varga (Republican): 1,211 (12.65%)

State House District 23

Hoang Nguyen (Democratic): 12,028 (82.82%)

Franklin D. Robinson (Republican): 2,182 (15.02%)

Cabot W Nelson (Forward): 313 (2.16%)

State House District 24

Grant Amjad Miller (Democratic): 8,132 (90.16%)

Braeden J. Oswald (Republican): 888 (9.84%)

State House District 25

Angela Romero (Democratic): 3,150 (76.53%)

Richard T Nowak (Republican): 966 (23.47%)

State House District 26

Michael E Finch (Democratic): 3,906 (63.84%)

Matt Macpherson (Republican): 2,212 (36.16%)

State House District 27

Liz Oates (Democratic): 3,848 (62.51%)

Anthony Loubet (Republican): 2,308 (37.49%)

State House District 28

Nicholeen Peck (Republican): 4,333 (52.84%)

Anita Dalrymple (Democratic): 3,275 (39.93%)

Wales Nematollahi (Forward): 593 (7.23%)

State House District 29

Sheldon Birch (Republican): 6,459 (67.25%)

Sara Snow (Democratic): 2,296 (23.91%)

Tynley Bean (Forward): 458 (4.77%)

Jonathan Garrard (Constitution): 391 (4.07%)

State House District 30

Jake Fitisemanu (Democratic): 4,267 (64.01%)

Dave Parke (Republican): 2,399 (35.99%)

State House District 31

Verona Mauga (Democratic): 4,020 (69.29%)

Melody Jones (Republican): 1,782 (30.71%)

State House District 32

Sahara Hayes (Democratic): 6,922 (83.31%)

Aileen Hampton (Republican): 1,387 (16.69%)

State House District 33

Doug Owens (Democratic): 10,711 (78.38%)

Anna Reeves (Republican): 2,955 (21.62%)

State House District 34

Julie Jackson (Democratic): 8,893 (100.00%)

State House District 35

Rosalba Dominguez (Democratic): 6,152 (66.37%)

Monique I. Ketcham (Republican): 3,117 (33.63%)

State House District 36

Blake Townsend (Democratic): 4,921 (54.19%)

Jim Dunnigan (Republican): 4,160 (45.81%)

State House District 37

Ashlee Matthews (Democratic): 3,463 (64.05%)

Casey Saxton (Republican): 1,944 (35.95%)

State House District 38

Sergio Sotelo (Unaffiliated): 3,341 (56.23%)

Chris Mcconnehey (Republican): 2,601 (43.77%)

State House District 39

Drew Howells (Democratic): 4,321 (59.33%)

Ken Ivory (Republican): 2,962 (40.67%)

State House District 40

Andrew Stoddard (Democratic): 5,915 (100.00%)

State House District 41

John Arthur (Democratic): 9,171 (67.50%)

Darren Croft (Republican): 4,415 (32.50%)

State House District 42

Iva Williams (Democratic): 7,259 (55.79%)

Clint Okerlund (Republican): 5,752 (44.21%)

State House District 43

Ofa Matagi (Democratic): 5,336 (55.71%)

Steve Eliason (Republican): 4,242 (44.29%)

State House District 44

Jess Birtcher (Democratic): 5,302 (54.07%)

Jordan Teuscher (Republican): 4,504 (45.93%)

State House District 45

Tracy Miller (Republican): 4,963 (52.38%)

Rod Moser (Democratic): 4,512 (47.62%)

State House District 46

Cal Roberts (Republican): 4,801 (53.20%)

Braxten Rutherford (Democratic): 4,223 (46.80%)

State House District 47