CACHE COUNTY – Now that the candidates for political offices in the upcoming general election have all declared, the busy schedule for Republican Party’s 2024 political season has fallen into place.
The Cache County Republican Party exists primarily to support Utah’s caucus-convention system, according to county GOP chair Geoff Cox, so the dates of those events will be crucial in the 2024 political season.
The county caucus is scheduled to take place on Tuesday, Mar. 5. That evening, each of the county’s neighborhoods – or precincts – will elect delegates who will attend the County Convention on April 13.
The county’s caucus night will also serve as a chance for local Republicans to indicate their preference for a GOP presidential candidate in 2024. The choice will be between frontrunner former President Donald Trump, former Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley.
At the Cache County Convention on April 13, local GOP delegates will vote to narrow down the field of candidates who will appear on the ballots for the GOP primary and general election.
The contested races that will be decided at the Cache County Convention on April 13 will be for county attorney; county clerk; the county council seats for Logan District 1, plus the North and South Districts; the seats for Utah House Districts 2 and 3; and, the newly created post of county auditor.
The GOP candidates in those contests are incumbent County Attorney K. Taylor Sorensen and Cameron Cox, a public defender, for county attorney. The race for the post of county clerk will be a four-way contest between Bryson J. Behm (the county’s former chief deputy clerk) and newcomers David Palmer, Roger T. Anderson and Sebastian M. Luu.
In the race for Logan Seat 1 on the Cache County Council, long-term incumbent Karl Ward will face Keegan Garrity.
In the council’s North District, incumbent county council chair David Erickson will face Jon-David Jorgensen.
In the council’s South District, incumbent Nolan P. Gunnell will face Devron Anderson, the former recorder for Cache County.
In the race for the Utah House District 2 seat in the Legislature, the candidates are incumbent Rep. Mike Petersen and Mike Monson, the principal of Sky View High School in Smithfield.
In House District 3, the candidates are former Cache County council member Paul Borup and Jason E. Thompson, the current mayor of River Heights.
Running for the newly created post of county auditor are Dianna Schaeffer, the current county tax administrator; Brittany Kingston, the county’s budget analyst; Dirk Anderson, the chief deputy to County Executive David Zook; and, Matthew C. Funk, a certified public accountant.
All uncontested races will be decided by acclimation at the county convention, Geoff Cox explains.
Those same Cache County delegates who attend the county convention will also attend the Utah State Convention on April 27.
At that GOP gathering, they will vote on contests for the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT); the House District 1 seat in Washington, D.C.; and, the state posts of Utah governor, attorney general and state auditor.
U.S. Rep. John Curtis (R-UT) leads the parade of prominent Republicans seeking to replace Romney, followed by the former speaker of the Utah House Brad Wilson and Brent Orrin Hatch, the son of the late Sen. Orrin Hatch. That list of GOP hopefuls continues with Jeremy Lewis Friedbaum, Carolyn Phippen, Clark S. White, Chandler H. Tanner, Josh Randall, Trent Staggs, Brian Earl Jenkins and Jason J. Walton.
In the U.S. House District 1 race in northern Utah, incumbent Rep. Blake Moore will be defending his seat against three Republicans. Those challengers are Paul Miller, Derek L. Draper and Daniel R. Cottam.
At state level, incumbent Gov. Spencer Cox is facing challenges from four more conservative members of this own Republican Party. In state convention balloting, Cox will compete against Republicans Phil Lyman, T. Carson Jorgensen, Scott Robbins and Sylvia Miera-Fisk.
The field of GOP hopefuls running to replace outgoing Attorney General Sean Reyes is almost as crowded as the governor’s race. That field includes Republican candidates Derek Brown, Trent E. Christensen, Rachel Terry and Frank D. Mylar.
In the race for state auditor are Republicans Tina Canon and Ricky Hatch.
Although the state GOP convention was originally intended to reduce those races to a single candidate, many political hopefuls are determined to guarantee themselves a place on the state’s primary ballot by collecting voter signatures.
GOP candidates choosing to go that route include Cox, Robbins, Miera-Fisk and Lyman for Utah governor; Curtis, Jenkins, Hatch, Wilson, Tanner, Walton and White for U.S. Senate; Moore and Draper for U.S. House District 1; and, Brown for Utah attorney general.
Mail-in balloting for the statewide GOP primary will conclude on Tuesday, June 25.
The website of the Cache County Republican Party is located at https://www.cachegop.com/ and Geoff Cox advises locals to watch for more updates on the GOP caucus and convention on that site.