Martial Monk: No they weren't. The enabling act for Utah's admission to the union was signed by a Democrat in anticipation of a new Democratic State. That didn't happen. Despite being a western mining state admitted during the height of the free silver and Populist/Democratic movement Utah dallied with the Democrats for a brief moment and went straight Republican.
Reaganaut to Martial Monk: wanted a source for your assertion that Utah was mostly Republican in the 1800’s.
19th century
Reaganaut to svcw: The GOP was founded in 1854, and Utah did not become a state until 1896 (after the “revelation”). That leaves most of the second half of the 1800’s that Utah was NOT republican. The main party prior to that was the People’s party (Mormon).
(And the other major party from 1870-1893 in Utah was The Liberal Party, founded by an ex-communicated Mormon & it was considered the "anti-Mormon" party...this party had some polygamists in its midst so it really wasn't outspoken vs. polygamy until 1880s at some point...The Liberal party had 1/3rd of the Utah State Legislature in 1891)
But you're right, Reaganaut. I'm not sure if MM is defending the claim that Lds wasn't mostly Democratic in the early 1900s or the 1800s or both. I'm still further checking on the early 1900s...but MM claimed that Utah "dallied with the Democrats for a brief moment and went straight Republican." It looks to me that the only "brief dallying" was when the Utah Legislature went temporarily Republican in 1896 in its Utah State Legislature (31-14 R in the House of Reps & 11-7 R in the State Senate)...by the following year --1897 -- it had astoundly flip-flopped -- 39 Dems, 3 Republicans & 3 Populists in the UT House of Reps and 17 Dems, 0 Rep, & 1 Populist in the UT Senate.
1856-1887:
We know the fledgling Republicans called "polygamy" one of the "twin relics of barbarism" in 1856 -- so we know the Mormon legislators weren't hustling over to the Republicans. And the anti-polygamy Congressional sentiment from the 1860s through the 1880s fostered the same thing. Nationally 'twas the Southern Democrats who opposed the Edmunds Act in 1882 -- so the Lds reps were split between the People's Party & the Dems -- and to a much lesser degree, Republicans & the Liberal party at that time.
1888-1892:
Anthony Ivins, the man behind many of the continued Lds "plural unions" solemnized in Juarez, Mexico 1895-1907 (that's right, hundreds of such unions were solemnized after the famous 1890 manifesto), was appointed to a church position in St. George, UT in 1888 and according to onlineutah.com, Ivins "organized the Sagebrush Democrat" movement that year to draw more away from the People's Party & Liberal party.
According to another source, a 1909 book in the BYU library, the movement was sweeping. Josiah F. Gibbs wrote a 1909 book published by the Salt Lake Tribune called "Lights and Shadows of Mormonism." On p. 314, Gibbs says: "...the fact that ALL the Utah delegates, from Dr. Bernhisel down to John T. Caine in 1888, affiliated with the Democrats in Congress clearly proves that the Mormon leaders believed that the interests of the church were safer in the hands of the Democratic party, which, as a national organization, had not manifested any hostility to the Utah Saints."
You gotta understand, MM, that the feds in the late 1880s were placing heavy pressure upon the Lds church. So no wonder they were seeking security in the Democratic party. As Reaganaut's quote revealed: When Mormons did think in terms of national politics, they were almost universally Democrat, as the Republicans opposed Utah statehood.
Post-manifesto years -- 1890s:
Excerpt cited by Reaganaut from allaboutmormons.com: In order to gain the senate’s approval for statehood, Utah was required to “normalize its political allegiances.” The Church disbanded the Mormon People’s Party but feared that a mass Mormon migration to the Democratic Party would displease Republican senators. Church leaders sent Apostle John Henry Smith to visit LDS congregations. It was possible to be a faithful Mormon and a Republican, he explained to the amazement of many LDS faithful. In 1893, the Church even asked some specific families to become Republicans, a move that would be unimaginable today.
Hence, it wasn't til about 1893 that the church had many of its members flip-flop to the Republicans...a move that continued heavily through most of 1896 until election day of that year -- when as Reaganaut's excerpt shows: The Democrats had some impressive victories; in the first presidential election after Utah statehood in 1896, Democrats earned eighty percent of the presidential vote for William Jennings Bryan and elected many of their own to state, local, and national offices.
(Hence the big turnaround in 1897 I cited above)
Allaboutmormons.com says it rebalanced fairly evenly right about the turn of the century.
1896 was the year of the "Cross of Gold" Democrats. Colorado, Nevada, Montana, and Idaho (all mining states) replaced Republican governors with Democratic ones. Utah voted for William Jennings Bryan by almost the same exact percentage as did the other four mining states. In 1900 they voted McKinley over Bryan.