Utah's 2nd Congressional District elections, 2012
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November 6, 2012 |
June 26, 2012 |
Chris Stewart  |
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The 2nd Congressional District of Utah held an election for the U.S. House of Representatives on November 6, 2012.
Chris Stewart (R) won the general election on November 6, 2012. He defeated four opponents, including Democrat Jay Seegmiller for the open seat, which was being vacated by Jim Matheson. Due to redistricting, Matheson chose to run in the newly created 4th District in 2012 rather than seek re-election. Matheson, who won the election in the district, was a Democrat, therefore Stewart's win represented a partisan switch for the 2nd Congressional District.[1]
| Candidate Filing Deadline | Primary Election | General Election |
|---|---|---|
Primary: Utah has a mixed primary system, with Republicans having a closed primary and Democrats having an open one. Both parties hold conventions prior to the primaries.
Voter registration: Voters had to register to vote in the primary by October 7, 2011, or October 22, 2011 in-person. For the general election, voter registration deadlines are October 7,2012 and October 22, 2012 in-person.[2]
- See also: Utah elections, 2012
Incumbent: Heading into the election was incumbent Jim Matheson (D), who was first elected to the House in 2000. Due to changes from redistricting, Matheson ran for, and won, the newly created 4th District seat.[3]
This was the first election using district maps based on data from the 2010 Census. Utah's 2nd Congressional District is located in the northern portion of the state, and surrounds Salt Lake City, and parts of Morgan and Summit counties.[4]
Candidates
Note: Election results were added on election night as races were called. Vote totals were added after official election results had been certified. Click here for more information about Ballotpedia's election coverage plan. Please contact us about errors in this list.
General election candidates
Party convention results
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Election results
| Party | Candidate | Vote % | Votes | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Republican |  Chris Stewart |
62.2% | 154,523 | |
| Democratic | Jay Seegmiller | 33.5% | 83,176 | |
| Constitution | Jonathan D. Garrard | 2% | 5,051 | |
| Independent | Joseph Andrade | 1.2% | 2,971 | |
| Independent | Charles E. Kimball | 1.1% | 2,824 | |
| Total Votes | 248,545 | |||
| Source: Utah Lieutenant Governor "Official Election Results, 2012 General Election" | ||||
Race background
Blue vs. Red
Possible race ratings are:
Solid Democratic
Likely Democratic
Lean DemocraticTossup
Lean Republican
Likely Republican
Solid Republican
Utah's 2nd District was a solidly Republican district.
In May 2012, Sabato's Crystal Ball rated Utah's 2nd as safely Republican.[11]
Convention results
Democratic convention
The Democratic Party held its convention on April 21, 2012. Delegates selected party nominees for U.S. Congress, among other offices.[12] For Utah's 2nd District, they selected former Utah state Representative Jay Seegmiller over Dean Collinwood and Michael Small.[13]
Republican convention
Amidst controversy, the Republican delegation selected Chris Stewart from a field of nearly a dozen candidates. At the April 21 convention, Eureka Mayor Milt Hanks claimed in a speech that four candidates had illegally cooperated to campaign against Stewart. A party investigation during the next two weeks found that no such wrongdoing had taken place -- it also cleared Hanks of the counter-accusation that he had made the outburst at the convention to drum up support for Stewart.[14]
Howard Wallack, for one, said he would continue "to try to get to the bottom of what happened" at the convention, which degenerated into chaos after what one news source called Hanks' "tirade."[15] Wallack, Cherilyn Eagar, Dave Clark, and Chuck Williams were the four accused of perpetrating an anonymous "Anyone but Chris" campaign, and Wallack, in turn, accused Hanks of being a plant of the Stewart campaign.[16]
While state Republican Party chair Thomas Wright cleared all involved,[14] some Republican voters were displeased with the convention's selection, and were considering voting for Democratic candidate Jay Seegmiller rather than Stewart.[16]
Campaign contributions
Candidates for Congress were required to file up to seven main reports with the Federal Election Commission during the 2012 elections season. Below are candidate reports.
Jay Seegmiller
| Jay Seegmiller Campaign Finance Reports | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Report | Date Filed | Beginning Balance | Total Contributions for Reporting Period | Expenditures | Cash on Hand | ||||
| Pre-Primary[17] | June 6, 2012 | $5,148.02 | $36,114.65 | $(6,079.18) | $35,183.49 | ||||
| July Quarterly[18] | July 15, 2012 | $35,183.49 | $6,418.00 | $(20,932.13) | $20,669.36 | ||||
| Running totals | |||||||||
| $42,532.65 | $(27,011.31) | ||||||||
Chris Stewart
| Chris Stewart Campaign Finance Reports | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Report | Date Filed | Beginning Balance | Total Contributions for Reporting Period | Expenditures | Cash on Hand | ||||
| Pre-Convention[19] | April 1, 2012 | $104,554.32 | $68,289.40 | $(60,126.08) | $112,717.64 | ||||
| July Quarterly[20] | July 13, 2012 | $112,717.64 | $95,239.78 | $(93,205.40) | $114,752.02 | ||||
| Running totals | |||||||||
| $163,529.18 | $(153,331.48) | ||||||||
Impact of redistricting
Following Utah's 24% increase in population over the 2000s, the state added a 4th Congressional District. Democrats threatened lawsuits over Utah's redistricting.
The 2nd District contained less than a third of the number of voters it had in the last election, and it was 60% to 65% Republican.[21] As a result, 2nd District incumbent Jim Matheson (D), who at the time lived in the 2nd District, ran in the newly created 4th District.[3]
District partisanship
FairVote's Monopoly Politics 2012 study
- See also: FairVote's Monopoly Politics 2012
In 2012, FairVote did a study on partisanship in the congressional districts, giving each a percentage ranking (D/R) based on the new 2012 maps and comparing that to the old 2010 maps. Utah's 2nd District did not have 2010 partisanship ratings because it was an open seat.[22]
- 2012: 36D / 64R
- 2010: N/A
Cook Political Report's PVI
In 2012, Cook Political Report released its updated figures on the Partisan Voter Index, which measured each congressional district's partisanship relative to the rest of the country. Utah's 2nd Congressional District had a PVI of R+16, which was the 37th most Republican district in the country. In 2008, this district was won by John McCain (R), 61-39 percent over Barack Obama (D). In 2004, George W. Bush (R) won the district 69-31 percent over John Kerry (D).[23]
District history
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2010
On November 2, 2010, Jim Matheson won re-election to the U.S. House of Representatives, defeating Morgan Philpot (R), Randall Hinton (Constitution), Dave Glissmeyer (I), and Wayne L. Hill (I).[24]
| U.S. House of Representatives General Election, Utah, Congressional District 2, 2010 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Party | Candidate | Vote % | Votes | |
| Democratic | Jim Matheson Incumbent |
50.5% | 127,151 | |
| Republican | Morgan Philpot | 46.1% | 116,001 | |
| Constitution | Randall Hinton | 1.8% | 4,578 | |
| Unaffiliated | Dave Glissmeyer | 0.9% | 2,391 | |
| Unaffiliated | Wayne L. Hill | 0.7% | 1,726 | |
| Total Votes | 251,847 | |||
See also
- United States House of Representatives elections in Utah, 2012
- United States House of Representatives elections, 2012
- United States Senate elections in Utah, 2012
Footnotes
- ↑ ABC News, "General Election Results 2012-Utah," November 7, 2012
- ↑ Utah Lieutenant Governor, "Voting Registration Deadlines," accessed July 6, 2012
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 Deseret News, "Rep. Jim Matheson jumps to 4th Congressional District for re-election," accessed December 16, 2011 Cite error: Invalid
<ref>tag; name "dn" defined multiple times with different content - ↑ Utah Redistricting Map, "Map" accessed July 24, 2012
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 5.4 5.5 5.6 5.7 5.8 5.9 Utah Lieutenant Governor's Office: Elections "2012 Candidate Filings," accessed March 16, 2012
- ↑ Jason Buck for Congress "NFL Star and Conservative Republican Builds Competitive Campaign To Win Back This Current Democratic Seat," January 17, 2012
- ↑ Deseret News "Clark running for Congress, expected to resign from Legislature," accessed December 3, 2011
- ↑ Deseret News "Cherilyn Eagar announces congressional campaign," accessed December 3, 2011
- ↑ Salt Lake Tribune "Republican announces he will challenge Matheson," accessed December 3, 2011
- ↑ Deseret News "Redistricting squabble has GOP congressional hopefuls wondering where to line up," accessed December 3, 2011
- ↑ Center for Politics, "2012 House Ratings," Updated May 9, 2012
- ↑ St. George News, "Largest delegate turnout for Utah’s Democratic Party Convention; election results and photo gallery," April 22, 2012
- ↑ Utah Lt. Gov. Office: Elections, "2012 Candidate Filings," accessed May 27, 2012
- ↑ 14.0 14.1 Salt Lake Tribune, "GOP probe finds no wrongdoing in 2nd District chaos," May 8, 2012
- ↑ Salt Lake Tribune, "Mayor of Eureka: The man who blew up Utah GOP convention," May 12, 2012
- ↑ 16.0 16.1 Salt Lake Tribune, "2nd District turmoil has some GOP looking at Democrat," May 1, 2012
- ↑ Federal Election Commission, "Seegmiller Congressional Campaign Committee Pre-Primary," accessed July 13, 2012
- ↑ Federal Election Commission, "Seegmiller Congressional Campaign Committee July Quarterly," accessed July 20, 2012
- ↑ Federal Election Commission, "Friends of Chris Stewart, Inc. Pre-Convention," accessed July 13, 2012
- ↑ Federal Election Commission, "Friends of Chris Stewart, Inc. July Quarterly," accessed July 20, 2012
- ↑ Salt Lake Tribune, "GOP says Dems exaggerate Utah redraw impact," accessed December 3, 2011
- ↑ "2011 Redistricting and 2012 Elections in Utah," September 2012
- ↑ Cook Political Report, "Partisan Voting Index Districts of the 113th Congress: 2004 & 2008" accessed October 2012
- ↑ U.S. Congress House Clerk, "Statistics of the Congressional Election of November 2, 2010," accessed March 28, 2013
