Utah Political Watch
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155 votes vs. 21,000: How Stuart Adams was defeated by democracy
Posted
June 25, 2026
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June 25, 2026
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59:00Now PlayingStuart Adams just became the first sitting Utah Senate President to lose a primary since 2002, and the shockwaves are still reverberating across Capitol Hill. The man who ran the Utah Senate like a personal kingdom got sent home by the very voters he forgot to listen to, and Ben McAdams, the newly minted Democratic nominee in Utah's 1st Congressional District, has some thoughts about that.
McAdams joined the show fresh off a convincing primary win with more than 50% of the vote, clearing the majority threshold in a multi-candidate field , and he didn't hold back.
He called out the Utah GOP for getting "fat and lazy," using gerrymandering to insulate themselves from accountability, and then acting shocked when voters finally had enough. He draws a sharp distinction between the Stratos data center disaster and his own work with a clean-energy data center project in southern Utah that spent six years going through the public process the right way.
McAdams also talks about why he went through the convention process even though he didn't have to, what it means to actually listen to voters instead of just performing for them, and why winning CD1 in November is going to require building a coalition that goes well beyond the Democratic base in a district that's only 25% registered Democrat.
Plus, host Bryan Schott breaks down why Stuart Adams lost and how that might have other Republicans up for election in November freaked out, and what's next for Phil Lyman after the beatdown he suffered at the hands of Celeste Maloy in the primary.
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