SALT LAKE CITY – With the inauguration of President-Elect Donald Trump just days away, not all Utah Democrats are taking their humiliation in the general election of 2024 lying down.
One response by local Democratic loyalists to the defeat of Vice President Kamala Harris in that balloting has been to launch the Majorities Matter Political Action Committee here in Utah.
The bold mission of that initiative, according to co-founder Tom DeSirant, is to build Democratic majorities across Utah by supporting every legislative candidate.
“For too long,” he explains, “countless (legislative) districts have gone uncontested, leaving voters without options and allowing Republicans to run unchallenged. Majorities Matter is here to change that.”
DeSirant adds that the PAC’s two-pronged strategy is simple. Majorities Matter will support every Democratic legislative candidate with the funding needed to file his or her candidacy and to meet their basic campaign needs while investing in competitive races to flip Republican held seats.
During the party’s national convention in Chicago last August, Utah Democratic Party chair Diane Lewis predicted that Utah is on the verge of becoming the next swing state in the U.S. in upcoming elections.
While that prediction proved to be wildly optimistic in 2024, local Democrats still found signs of promise in statewide election results.
“It is clear that Utah resisted a nationwide shift to the right,” Lewis wrote in a prepared statement released Nov. 20, which hailed the preservation of the status quo in the Utah Legislature.
“Despite high Republican turnout and thousands of dollars spent by outside organizations to benefit Republican candidates,” she added, “Democrats prevented Republicans from netting any (additional) seats in the State Legislature here.”
Utah Democrats are also banking on a different outcome in the next statewide election thanks to a recent ruling by the Utah Supreme Court overturning the partisan voting district boundaries drawn by the GOP majority in the Legislature in 2021.
While that July 2024 decision represents a win for plaintiffs in that case – including the Utah League of Women Voters — that victory is limited, given that the ruling merely sent their case back to the district court for a trial.
The Majorities Matter PAC was founded by a group of former Utah Democratic Party staffers who are dedicated to growing the party’s influence throughout the state. They include DeSirant, UDP field organizer Shayla Frierich and former UDP communications director Ben Anderson.
DeSirant was UDP executive director from 2022 to 2024 and currently serves on the Millcreek City Council. He managed and consulted on dozens of successful races between 2016 and 2021.
Frierich also brings a wealth of political experience to Majorities Matter, including having served as president of the Young Democrats of Oregon as well as policy/advocacy director for the Young Democrats of America.
With experience on Democratic campaigns from statewide to local level, Anderson also has expertise in the building of long-term infrastructure to support candidates.
Fueled by a growing population and shifting political attitudes, that trio believes that the mid-term election in 2026 will present the best opportunity to flip seats in the Utah Legislature and expand Democratic influence statewide.
“Utah deserves a future where every voter has a choice and every community has a voice,” DeSirant emphasizes.
“By supporting Democratic candidates statewide and giving extra support to especially competitive races,” he adds, “we’re not just leveling the playing field – we’re redefining it.”