Candidates Endorsed in 2018 Primary

ABBEY WRIGHT, State Senate 9

ADAM ALBA, State House 18

ANDREW STODDARD, State House 44

ANTHONY SUDWEEKS, State House 49

BEN MCADAMS, U.S. House 4

CAROL SPACKMAN MOSS, State House 37

CHERYL NUNN, State House 16

CHRISTINA HIGGINS, State House 55 (Multi County)

CHRISTOPHER NEVILLE, State House 53 (Multi County)

CLARE COLLARD, State Senate 12 (Multi County)

COURTNEY JONES, State House 19

DAN MCCLELLAN, State House 52

DANIEL CRAIG FRIEND, State House 64

DARLENE MCDONALD, U.S. House 4

DAWN NUNN, State House 17

DEANA FROERER, State House 8

DEBBIE K. VIGIL, State House 21

DEREK KITCHEN, State Senate 2

DERRICK FULLUM, State House 30

DIANE LEWIS, State House 43

EILEEN GALLAGHER, State Senate 26 (Multi County)

ELIZABETH WEIGHT, State House 31

GENE DAVIS, State Senate 3

IRA D. HATCH, State House 33

JACQUELYN ORTON, State House 24

JAMES COURAGE SINGER, U.S. House 3

JANI IWAMOTO, State Senate 4

JEN DAILEY-PROVOST, State House 24

JENNIFER PLUMB, State Senate 2

JENNY WILSON, U.S. Senate

JOEL K. BRISCOE, State House 25

JOSH BRUNDAGE, State House 4

JOSHUA HARDY, State House 1 (Multi County)

KAREN KWAN, State House 34

KARINA ANDELIN BROWN, State House 5

KATHLEEN RIEBE, State Senate 8

KENT MOON, U.S. House 3

KERRY M WAYNE, State House 29 (Multi County)

KURT WEILAND, U.S. House 1

LEE CASTILLO, U.S. House 1

MARK CHAMBERS, State Senate 28 (multi county)

MEAGHAN MILLER, State House 54 (Multi County)

MEGAN WIESEN, State House 50

MERLE TRAVIS WALL, State House 68 (Multi County)

MICHAEL A. KEIL, State Senate 17 (Multi County)

MORGAN SHEPHERD, U.S. House 4

NADIA MAHALLATI, State Senate 2

PAT VAUGHN, State Senate 26 (Multi County)

PATRICE ARENT, State House 36

PAUL JONES DAYTON, State House 66

ROBERT BURCH, JR., State House 30

ROBERT GREENBERG, State House 70 (Multi County)

SCOTT BELL, State House 47

SHANELL DAY, State House 14

SHIREEN GHORBANI, U.S. House 2

SUE A. WOMACK, State House 65

SUZANNE HARRISON, State House 32

TIM CHAMBLESS, State Senate 2

TYLER ALLRED, State House 2

WENDY GARVIN, State House 41

ZENO B. PARRY, State House 72

Endorsements

Historically, our caucus has not partaken in the endorsement process for candidates seeking a Democratic Party nomination. And for good reason. We didn't want to endorse candidates based on some obscure idea of "how Mormon are they," "are they members of the Church," or "do they support the Church." All of those are so subjective and, frankly, discriminatory. 

But we are the largest caucus in the Utah Democratic Party, and last year, our membership decided we should start acting like it. Maybe we do need to have a say in choosing winners and losers. Maybe we need our thousands of members to know who we support. 

So this year, we designed an elementary process to receive our endorsement. There are two criteria. First, candidates needed to take a training that we give on how to message to LDS voters. Too many Democratic candidates have been very poor at this. We built out a one hour training session, offered four sessions for candidates to attend and sent out an invitation to all 117 Democratic candidates who filed on the March 15 deadline. Over four weeks we conducted these trainings, and then, our executive committee voted to choose who, of those trained, we would endorse. Each candidate needed a ⅔ supermajority to make sure we are as close to unanimous as we could reasonably ask.

In the end we endorsed a number of candidates, sometimes choosing more than one in a particular race, often choosing none. Our rationale is just to assure our constituency that there are candidates who have taken this training, internalized it, and assured us that they will run campaigns based on respect, integrity, and acceptance of all voters. Similarly, we were adamant about choosing candidates who, through their rhetoric and tone will not handicap their ability to win in a general election. 

All that being said. This process is not perfect. We are not perfect. Candidates are not perfect. We want to improve this process and expand it and would appreciate your feedback. Send us a message at Utah@ldsdems.org with your ideas for improvement.