A fight over the future of the Democratic Party is currently playing out in Utah. Yes, Utah.
Eight years ago, Ben McAdams ascended to the House, taking the most conservative-leaning district won by a Democrat that cycle. He lost his seat in 2020 after voting to impeach President Donald Trump. Now, he’s back, running for the House again, in a newly drawn, solidly Democratic district.
This time, McAdams is facing a challenger from his left, and some in the district say he’s too conservative for the Democratic Party — even in a state as reliably red on the national stage as Utah.
“We have literally, by some measures, the most conservative Democrat from his previous term in Congress squaring off against myself, a Bernie Sanders-endorsed candidate who has been called a punk by the Republicans here in Utah, who’s gotten my microphone shut off for speaking truth to power on the Senate floor,” Democratic State Sen. Nate Blouin, who is running against McAdams, said. “That is very, very indicative of the state of primaries in the Democratic Party.”
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Democrats in safe-blue seats across the country are facing challengers from their left, leaving the Democratic Party to decide which candidates to line up behind as they fight to flip the control of Congress. Rep. Doris Matsui is facing a primary challenge from Sacramento City Councilmember Mai Vang in California’s 7th District, and Rep. Shri Thanedar is competing against State Rep. Donavan MicKinney in Michigan’s 13th.
The challengers from the left have already suffered losses in some states. In North Carolina, Nida Allam failed to beat Rep. Valerie Foushee, and in Illinois, Kat Abughazaleh lost to Daniel Biss.
The debate is also playing out in more competitive statewide races.
Candidates like Graham Platner, who is running as the consummate outsider against Gov. Janet Mills in Maine’s Senate race, and Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan’s Senate race, have garnered attention — and support — in ways that are thwarting establishment thinking.
“There’s a real appetite — renewed appetite — for economic populism, like lefty economic populism,” Adam Carlson, a Democratic pollster, said. “Does [the party] lean in and tap into that anger from the base of voters who are dissatisfied with the direction the party is going in, or do they play it safe and go with the more electable, proven candidate that has won in the past?”
The race for Utah’s 1st Congressional District, he said, is one of the “proxy wars” for the upcoming presidential primaries in 2028.
McAdams is polling ahead of Blouin, but both candidates are getting attention from national politicians and organizations.
Where McAdams has won endorsements from the centrist Welcome PAC and New Democrats, Blouin has the backing of members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus and Sen. Bernie Sanders.
“Normally, I don’t think Bernie would get involved in Utah races,” Carlson said. “But there’s such an opportunity here. It’s also symbolic of the roughly two camps’ battle for the soul of the party ahead of 2028.”
McAdams pushed back against the idea of voters having a binary choice between moderates and progressives. The party’s takeaway from 2024 should be that it needs to be a big tent, he said.
“We need to allow districts to elect candidates that reflect their values, whether that’s Zohran Mamdani in New York or Mikie Sherrill in New Jersey,” McAdams said. “The label that I would say is I’m solution-oriented, and we’ll work with anyone to find common ground and get things done.”
McAdams knows the big tent well. He won a blue state senate seat in 2009, won the mayoral race for Salt Lake County in 2012, outperforming Barack Obama, and ousted former Republican Rep. Mia Love in Utah’s 4th Congressional District in 2018.
“He had to reinvent himself as a moderate to get elected to Congress and to run against Mia Love,” said Quin Monson, a political scientist and former pollster for Love. “I think the truth is, he’s quite progressive, but I would call him a pragmatic progressive.”
The electability of the “pragmatic progressive” has been debated in the Democratic Party for more than a decade, in House races and the presidential primaries.
Some in the progressive movement say politics has shifted from that debate.
“We’re seeing a shift around the country with Democratic primary voters looking for someone who isn’t just a politician who is comfortable taking money from corporate PACs, from billionaires,” Evan Brown, executive director of the Congressional Progressive Caucus PAC, said. “They’re looking for a candidate who has stood with labor, that has stood with pro-choice legislation, that has been willing to take on the corporate class.”
This year has shown untested candidates can result in some unusual campaign developments; in Platner’s case, he’s weathered repeated scandals over offensive online posts and a tattoo that resembled a Nazi symbol that he’s since covered up. In Utah, Blouin is facing a controversy of his own: He had to apologize for past offensive online posts about women and the Church of Latter Day Saints.
“There’s no excuse for these posts — they’re vulgar, stupid, and reflect a version of me in my early twenties that I’m ashamed of and have thankfully evolved past. When a reporter sent me these posts, I was horrified to see my use of language toward women and about a faith that my family, friends, and millions of Utahns practice,” he wrote in a statement.
Unlike Platner, whose popularity has only soared since his scandals, it’s unclear whether Blouin will be able to shake his controversy in the same way.
The Congressional Progressive Caucus and Sen. Bernie Sanders have not pulled their endorsements of him. The Utah Democratic Party’s Progressive Caucus endorsed a different candidate in the race.
The caucus “had to think from a strategic standpoint to move forward with a candidate who can withstand tactics of opposition research and mudslinging,” said Mitchell Vice, chair of the state’s Progressive Caucus.
In response, Blouin said: “I’m grateful to the Progressive Caucus for the work they’ve done, and I think we’ll continue to work together in the future, but I think it’s a bit of a narrow-minded perspective right now.”
While McAdams’ critics point to the more conservative measures he voted for in Congress — including a bill that allowed doctors to refuse to perform abortions due to personal beliefs, as well as voting against labor unions and war powers — his campaign boasts progressive victories: statewide LGBTQ+ nondiscrimination protections, Medicaid expansion and pro-climate legislation.
If elected to Congress, McAdams said he’d vote to codify Roe into law, support the Protecting the Right to Organize Act and support the war powers resolution introduced by Reps. Ro Khanna and Thomas Massie.
He also believes that Citizens United should be overturned and big money should be out of politics. But “the reality is you have to win elections if you’re going to change the rules,” McAdams said. His individual contributions count for much more of his total fundraising than PAC money, per a recent FEC filing.
McAdams is also leaning in on Trump. He’s been “more overt in directly using more confrontational language about how to deal with the current governing majority in D.C.,” said Darin Self, chair of the Utah County Democratic Party. “Which is a departure from his last campaign where he chose to effectively run against the national Democratic Party.”
Whoever wins Utah’s 1st will be the state’s first Democrat since McAdams was in office and a chance to represent the red state when Democrats may be in the majority.
McAdams does see “an existential moment” at play in the race for Utah Democrats.
“We have to win the seat. We have to protect Prop Four,” he said, referring to the ballot measure that created an independent redistricting commission and allowed for this Democratic-leaning seat to exist in the first place.
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