Posted on 08/16/2017 11:28:06 AM PDT by nickcarraway
Though conservative firebrand Chris Herrod hasn’t conceded yet, the Associated Press and most political observers have named Provo mayor John Curtis the winner in yesterday’s special GOP primary in the third congressional district of Utah. Held to select a successor to Fox News’ latest “personality,” Jason Chaffetz, the primary was a three-way affair involving front-runner Curtis, Herrod (endorsed by an ideologue-dominated party convention), and basketball scion Tanner Ainge (son of former BYU and NBA star Danny Ainge). Most of the drama was generated by Herrod’s friends at the Club for Growth, who ran a lot of ads labeling Curtis a tax-loving RINO, mainly because he was a Democrat back in the day.
When the vote-counting stopped last night, Curtis was leading with 41 percent of the vote; Herrod had 31 percent and Ainge 28 percent. The main reason Herrod is holding out is that an estimated 30,000 mail ballots postmarked by August 14 are yet to be counted in Utah County (the district’s largest) alone. Curtis’s overall lead is under 8,000 votes. But since he has a healthy lead in Utah County as well, there’s no particular reason to think the late mail ballots will reverse the results.
Curtis is now an overwhelming favorite against Democrat Kathie Allen. As the Salt Lake Tribune columnist Robert Gehrke observed, the bigger significance of Curtis’s win was that it validated a 2014 change in Utah election law that ended the nomination conventions’ monopoly by letting candidates qualify for the primary ballot via a reasonable number of petitions:
Tuesday’s decisive win by Curtis, who finished a distant fifth at the convention, lays bare not only the total disconnect between the convention delegates and actual Republican voters in the district, but also shows that candidates no longer have to surrender their principles and dance like trained monkeys for the frothing arch-conservative delegates. That’s good news for supporters of small-d democracy everywhere.
The traitorous Mormon Mafia got the open borders Republicans they wanted. They always do. The despicable LDS rules the GOP in Utah, Nevada and Arizona.
Disgusting that people don’t wake up on our aide
Hope Herrod keeps at it, being a thorn in Curtis’ side, until the next election.
No prejudice in that writer's eye, eh?
No prejudice in that writer's eye, eh?
Is Curtis an open borders Republican??
I haven’t followed the race. Has he established any conservative views at all?
No...it means that the rank and file conservatives are the majority but the Mormon Mafia controls the vote.
Ainge would have been great.
I hope he runs again.
We haven’t seen much from “conservatives” to help matters. RINO is a meaningless term it is thrown around so often for any purpose. Basically it applies to any Republican who can get elected.
RINO applies also in this case to a mayor who has a history of (a) having been a Dimocrat, and only changing party affiliation because of the electoral makeup of hs state, not because of principles; and (b) having never met a tax he didn’t like.
Curtis will fit right in, in Washington.
Left-wing Democrat Never Trumper “wins” Republican special primary for Chaffetz’s seat in Utah with plurality.
Chris Herrod should run as an Independent for the seat. Let the two Democrats split the vote.
It actually applies to tax and spend betrayers and anyone pro choice....they always end up rinos.
Ainge shouldn’t have run and split the conservative vote. Prior to this primary I wasn’t aware you could go outside the convention system (Curtis did poorly and I think Ainge skipped it all together, uncool). Horrible author of the farticle. 41% plurality ain’t no decisive win.
Filing deadline for indie bids has long passed. Hopefully this dude isn’t so bad.
Could he still do that in the general?
41% to 31% is pretty decisive.
Well under 50% though, he’d have lost with 1 opponent so the author was off base about a disconnect between the convention and the voters.
So there’s not a run off with winner being whoever of the top 2 gets better than 50%?
Switched parties out of convenience, vitriolic Never Trumper who either voted for the Butcheress or Willardbot Deep Stater Commie Egg McMuffin ? Oh, yeah, no chance he ain’t so bad.
I don’t know, it says the last day for Independent filings was June 12th. Of course, only left-wingers can avoid firm campaign laws (see: Loonie Lefty Lisa Murkowski). The only alternative might be to persuade a 3rd party nominee to step down and let Herrod be the nominee.
I see there will be three anti-Trump candidates: Curtis, the regular Dem, and the son of ex-Sen. Robert Bennett running on the Socialist Willardbot Egg McMuffin Party line. The IAP party candidate might be pro-Trump, but there’s no telling...
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