Estimated read time: 4-5 minutes
- Mike Kennedy and Glenn Wright are vying for Utah's 3rd Congressional District seat.
- Kennedy focuses on immigration reform and reducing national debt, leveraging his medical background.
- Wright prioritizes Social Security reform and renewable energy, emphasizing practical economic transitions.
SALT LAKE CITY — With the majority of Utah's representatives seeking reelection this fall, the race for the state's 3rd Congressional District seat is one of only two open contests for federal office in the state.
The seat has been held by Republican Rep. John Curtis since 2017, but with Curtis eyeing higher office in the U.S. Senate, there's room for a newcomer in Utah's congressional delegation.
Both candidates vying for Curtis' seat — Republican state Sen. Mike Kennedy and Democrat Glenn Wright — have run for federal office before. Wright ran against Curtis for the same seat two years ago, while Kennedy ran against Mitt Romney in 2018 for the Senate seat Curtis now hopes to fill.
Here is a brief look at each candidate ahead of Election Day:
Mike Kennedy
Mike Kennedy, a practicing family doctor and trained attorney from Alpine, was first elected to the Utah Legislature in 2012. When asked to reflect on his time in state government, Kennedy recalls working to build a connecting road to the State Developmental Center to reduce congestion on a busy highway in his district. Though not the flashiest policy, Kennedy told KSL.com his efforts helped push the decadeslong project over the finish line.
"It's a small thing, but it's a reflection of how I work," he said.
If elected to Congress, Kennedy wants to take that same approach to addressing his priorities, beginning with immigration reform and reducing the national debt. During a recent debate, he said he would like to work to reform immigration to make it easier to enter the country legally while increasing border security.
Kennedy said he would make that one of his top priorities if elected.
"It's a disaster," he said. "I'd like to find a collaborative group of people that we can actually work on innovations to secure our border No. 1, and then improve legal immigration."
Kennedy, who regularly leans into his medical credentials by describing himself as a "common-sense prescription for Washington," also believes his background will help him address waste in large entitlement programs such as Medicare and Medicaid — government-funded health insurance programs for older people and low-income families.
"I know Medicare and Medicaid and how there are — over and over again — systems that I see as either redundant or unnecessary that are costing our taxpayers billions of dollars," he told the KSL and Deseret News editorial boards in May.
He said he wants to reduce incentive for states to grow Medicaid rolls, and wants the federal government to give funds in block grants he says will be distributed more carefully.
Glenn Wright
Like Kennedy, Wright knows that entitlement reform is necessary to reduce the federal budget. He has talked about reforming Social Security benefits by allowing some adults who are approaching retirement age to receive a portion of their benefits while remaining employed. The rest of their benefits would be deferred until full retirement, which he says would keep the program solvent for longer.
Wright challenged Curtis two years ago, after serving on the Summit County Council for six years. He acknowledges he "didn't really do a whole lot of campaigning" last time around, but is pushing hard for a different outcome this year.
Along with visiting each county in the district, he's also made several trips to the Navajo Nation and the Uinta Basin — where energy extraction plays an important role in the economy. Wright said he'd like to see the region tap more into renewable energy and supports a potential nuclear or geothermal plan to help economies that have traditionally relied on coal.
"If you were to talk to me, say, 10 years ago, I would have told you we need to shut down the coal plants and stop burning, stop drilling for oil and natural gas immediately," he told KSL.com. "But with a different perspective, after talking to people who live in those counties and that's their economy, I see from a practical standpoint doing that would probably be completely disruptive."
"We need to have a path to a new economy. It's going to happen," he added. "How fast it happens is going to determine how fast we fix climate change. I don't know how fast that's going to be, but it's going to happen."
Election Day is Nov. 5. Mail-in ballots must be postmarked the day prior to Election Day in order to count. In-person voting locations and hours are available on your local county clerk's website or at vote.utah.gov.
