Utah sees rise in unaffiliated voters as dissatisfaction grows

SALT LAKE CITY — More Utah voters are choosing not to be affiliated with the two major political parties. State elections office data shows an increase of about 30,000 unaffiliated voters since last year.

"The biggest political movement in Utah isn't from red to blue. It's from red and blue to none of the above," said Taylor Morgan, a partner at Morgan and May Public Affairs.

Morgan said this shift is likely because a lot of people are dissatisfied with both Democrats and Republicans.

"Utah voters, a growing number of them, say neither political party represents them, and they are choosing to essentially opt out of those parties," he explained.

Morgan recommended that if politicians want to remedy this shift, they need to reach across the aisle to solve problems, as opposed to trying to only appeal to their own base. Meanwhile, his advice to voters is that they get involved in the political process by choosing one of the two major political parties, because change comes from within.

"The problem is if you leave a party because it doesn't represent you, you are only making sure that party never represents you," Morgan said. "We need to get involved in our political parties. We need to take them back, rather than leaving those parties so they just radicalize even more."

Morgan believes when more moderate voters remove themselves from the equation, it pushes party politics further to the left and right.

"If we continue to see more and more Utah voters — especially younger Utah voters, those from 18 to 35 — continue to abandon both parties, we will only see both parties in Utah become more extreme," he said.

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