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SALT LAKE CITY — While most of the high-profile races from primary election night in Utah were decided before sundown Tuesday, Rep. Celeste Maloy and challenger Colby Jenkins awoke Wednesday morning in a dead heat for the Republican nomination for the state's 2nd Congressional District.
As updated ballot counts continued to trickle in from the 13 county clerks in the district Wednesday, the incumbent maintained a narrow lead of only a few thousand votes. Maloy has garnered 41,990 votes, or 51.78%, according to the latest numbers posted just after 12 p.m.; Jenkins, a combat veteran, has 39,098 votes, or 48.22%.
"Because the results are still very close and there are several thousand outstanding ballots to be counted, we are looking forward to watching as more updates come in," Jenkins said in a social media post Wednesday morning. "I've enjoyed getting to know so many new Utahns from across the district during this campaign and I'm humbled by the strong support we received in such a short amount of time. I also want to congratulate Congresswoman Maloy for the strong support she received and for running a good campaign."
About 83% of the ballots have been counted, with about a third still outstanding in Salt Lake County, and about 15% remaining in Davis and Washington counties.
Maloy is running for the first time as an incumbent, after winning a special election last year to replace her former boss, Rep. Chris Stewart. A Cedar City resident, Maloy cobbled together a coalition of rural and southern Utah voters during last September's GOP primary to edge out former state lawmaker Becky Edwards and longtime Republican National Committeeman Bruce Hough.
Edwards, who was seen as the more moderate option, dominated along the Wasatch Front, while Maloy consistently put up large margins in the smaller rural counties and won a plurality in Washington County — which contributed nearly a third of all the votes cast.
Maloy's current coalition seems to have flipped in some ways in the nine months since she was first nominated by the GOP. The congresswoman still holds leads in several of the smaller counties — Beaver, Garfield, Kane, Millard, Piute, Sevier and Wayne — and she's winning in her home of Iron County, though not by the dominating margin she posted last year.
But Jenkins, a resident of St. George, holds a nearly 3,500-vote lead in Washington County, while Maloy is currently the stronger candidate in Salt Lake and Davis counties, with 58% and 56%, respectively.
Maloy's strength along the Wasatch Front can be explained in part by her incumbency status and, in part, by Jenkins' attempts to run to her right. Although neither candidate can credibly be described as moderate — Maloy is backed by former President Donald Trump and Jenkins was endorsed by Utah Sen. Mike Lee — Jenkins has repeatedly attacked Maloy for her votes in favor of recent spending bills passed in Congress.
As a relative newcomer to politics and little-known candidate before the April GOP nominating convention, Jenkins' turnout on Tuesday is also a testament to the influence of Lee on delegates and base Republican voters. Lee endorsed Jenkins on the eve of the convention, helping him win a solid majority of delegates and nearly knock Maloy off the primary ballot.
While Maloy has always cast herself as someone who is in touch with the needs of rural Utah voters, it may be her voters along the Wasatch Front she will have to thank should she hold her lead to clinch the nomination. Even with her lead in several smaller counties, Maloy's total margin in those counties is a couple hundred votes smaller than her overall lead, meaning her big improvement in Salt Lake and Davis Counties since last year deserves a lot of credit for her slight advantage.
