Estimated read time: 8-9 minutes
SALT LAKE CITY — A lot can change in politics in a single year.
At the end of 2023, Democratic President Joe Biden was gearing up to defend his presidency for another term. On the Republican side, many wondered if Nikki Haley or Ron DeSantis could unseat former President Donald Trump as the GOP's nominee, and the impact and outcome of Trump's several criminal cases was still up in the air.
Now, Biden is living out the lame-duck days of his presidency, having withdrawn from the race following a disastrous debate performance in June. Trump is preparing to return to the White House after winning the popular vote, surviving two assassination attempts and all but completing his takeover and transformation of the party that was led by Mitt Romney just over a decade ago. Though Trump was found guilty of 34 felonies related to his payments to a porn star ahead of the 2016 election, his sentencing has been indefinitely postponed after his election win. The remainder of the criminal cases against him have been essentially shuttered for the time being.
Utah saw its fair share of turbulent politics in 2024, as well. Fiercely contested Republican primaries for governor and U.S. Senate divided a portion of the state party against itself, and continued efforts by a losing gubernatorial candidate could deepen that rift going forward. State lawmakers were handed a pair of setbacks from the Utah Supreme Court, setting up potential showdowns over separation of power in the state.
It's impossible to predict what might happen over the next year, but recent changes in the political landscape will affect what comes next. Here are several political stories to watch in the coming year:
Utahns embrace Trump 2.0
Trump's win in 2016 took many in the political class by surprise, and many Republican officials in Utah declined to back the candidate after a 2005 video surfaced showing Trump bragging in graphic terms about making sexual advances on women. In the days following Trump's win, some in Utah wondered how the Republican-dominated state would get along with the new president-elect.
That dynamic couldn't be more different this time around. Republicans in Utah have been at odds with Biden's administration for four years and are naturally eager to once again have an ideological ally in the White House, but — unlike in 2016 — Trump is returning to the presidency as the standard-bearer of his party and with the full support of Utah's leaders.
Gov. Spencer Cox — a longtime Trump skeptic — changed course by endorsing Trump following the assassination attempt at a Butler, Pennsylvania, rally. The announcement surprised many Utahns, and a headline in the Atlantic in August declared Cox "the last man in America to change his mind about Trump."
Cox penned a letter to Trump urging him to listen to his "better angels" and said he believes Trump capable of uniting a nation "on the verge of being torn apart."
"I'm doing everything I can to help and support him," Cox told reporters in July. "We'll still have lots of disagreements, I'm sure. I do think that I can help and be a voice when it comes to helping to unify our nation, when it comes to helping to lower the temperature."
With Cox and Trump preparing to return for a second term in their respective offices, Cox has since pledged state support to aid Trump's promised deportation efforts.
"Utah will continue to welcome refugees and immigrants who enter the country lawfully, and we will continue pushing for reforms to the asylum process and for more visas to support our workforce needs," the governor said last month. He added: The state has "zero tolerance, however, for those who demonstrate a threat to public safety while in the country illegally."
State lawmakers are equally excited to have a Republican president, and House Speaker Mike Schultz, R-Hooper, said he expects the Trump administration to be more friendly to the state's policies, which faced "pressure from the federal government" under Biden. Utah has frequently butted heads with Biden's White House and, in August, sued, claiming 18.5 million acres of "unappropriated" land that is currently controlled by the federal government.
Republicans celebrated a 2017 proclamation from Trump that drastically reduced the size of the Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments, but those actions were undone by Biden in 2021. With Trump's reelection, state leaders expect another reversal of the size of the monuments, but also hope the Republican-controlled Congress could take action on a permanent solution.
"Everybody's tired of the back-and-forth on both sides of this," Sen.-elect John Curtis told the KSL and Deseret News editorial boards after winning his election last month. Curtis said he has spoken with Utah Sen. Mike Lee, along with state and local leaders, about a legislative fix that favors the state's interests.
"The beauty of legislation is you can't ram legislation with just one side of this. You have to have consensus," he said. "I'm hopeful we can put long-term resolution to that so we don't have this back-and-forth."
Utahns look to increase power in Washington
Just as state leaders are celebrating what they hope to be a return of power to the state, federal lawmakers from Utah are hoping to capitalize on the GOP trifecta in Washington to secure long-sought wins, particularly when it comes to federal spending. Congress last week voted to fund the government through mid-March, setting up another potential funding fight in the first months of Trump's second term.
Reducing the deficit has long been a top priority for Utah's conservative representatives and senators, but when Republicans last controlled Congress and the White House during Trump's first term, they passed a round of tax cuts that increased the deficit. Trump wants to renew those tax cuts — which expire at the end of next year — but has proposed other methods of reducing government spending, including appointing businessmen Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy to lead a non-governmental entity called the Department of Government Efficiency.
Musk, the owner of X and Tesla, has said the department can advise the administration on cutting "at least $2 trillion" of the national $6.5 trillion budget — which would account for a significant portion of non-entitlement spending. The ambitious proposals would likely need to be approved by Congress, and Lee is already working to position himself as an ally of Musk and Ramaswamy in the Senate.
I met the most interesting guy
— Mike Lee (@BasedMikeLee) October 18, 2024
He grew up in South Africa
He's now an American hero pic.twitter.com/GJ0onfYPB5
The senator and Musk have shared each other's posts about federal spending, regulations and free speech on X with increasing frequency in recent months, and Lee has referred to Musk as "an American hero." Just last week, Lee floated Musk and Ramaswamy as possible replacements for U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-Louisiana.
Lee's new Senate colleague, Sen.-elect John Curtis, R-Utah, has also consistently listed the deficit as a key problem to be addressed and has pledged his willingness to lead out on reforming the nation's Social Security system — a program that accounts for nearly a quarter of federal spending each year.
Reforming or eliminating Social Security benefits for retired Americans has long been a third rail in politics, but Curtis — who won't face a reelection vote until 2030 — has signaled his support for looking at reducing or delaying benefits for Americans who won't retire for decades.
"This is death around the country for a lot of politicians," Curtis said last month. "Look, we don't need to touch this for anybody who is in retirement. We don't need to touch it for anybody near retirement, but somewhere between (age) 21 and — pick a number, 50, right? — we need to start making some changes."
Musk and Ramaswamy will have Utah representatives as allies as well. Rep. Blake Moore, R-Utah, will lead a government efficiency caucus in the House, and Utah's three other representatives have campaigned on cutting the federal budget. Moore, 44, is seen as a rising star in the House GOP conference and has said he wishes conversations about the national deficit played a more prominent role in the national political discourse.
With Trump's Department of Government Efficiency, Moore may now have what he wanted. It's too early to say what Trump, Musk and Ramaswamy can accomplish — or how the public and lawmakers will respond to proposed spending cuts — but it's clear Utah's leaders see the next 12 months as crucial to addressing the longstanding problems they see with the national debt.
