Message from the Chair

Happy New Year!

With the new year arriving, many of us take stock of the past and plan for the future.  Let me do the same in regard to the county party.

Obviously, the big event for us was the election.  At the national level, Barack Obama brings a breath of fresh air to the Oval Office.  Democratic gains in both the U.S. House and Senate showed Americans generally are fed up with the Republican party and are ready for change.  We’re anxious to see significant changes to foreign and domestic policy that will ameliorate U.S. relations with other nations, end the war in Iraq, wage the real war on terror, boost support for education, institute real energy solutions, save the environment, and a host of other needed improvements.  

Utah County may seem like a world apart.  Elections in Utah County were disappointing in the sense that none of our wonderful legislative candidates won a majority of the vote.  However, we did not expect we could accomplish change over night.   Change takes time.  This is particularly true in Utah County where Democrats have received low vote totals, not to mention a lack of electoral victories, since the mid-1990s.  

The county party created a ten year plan in 2007 that was intended to move the party forward to electoral parity with Republicans within ten years, not within two years.  

Even though the party did not win seats in 2008, we did make significant progress towards that goal.   Many Utah County residents did vote for change.  We just didn’t convince enough of them that we were the change they want.

But let’s recount what we accomplished:  We fielded an amazing group of candidates.  They represented the best of Utah County.  They were well respected people in their community who sought to make a positive difference, which they did.  When you see one of these candidates, please thank them for running.

Let’s look at how the party and its candidates did this year.  The table here shows some of our progress in 2008 compared with the last two elections. 

In 2008, three of our candidates won 40 percent or more of the vote in their district.  That did not happen in 2004 or 2006.  In fact, it has been eight years since a Democratic candidate won 40 percent of the vote in Utah County, and then it was just one person.  It has been 12 years since three candidates did that well.

Also, nine of our candidates won 30 percent or more of the vote.  In 2006, only two did so; and in 2004 only one candidate did that well.  That means we gained significantly across the county.

One of the most telling statistics is the number of votes won by our candidates.  Our senate candidates did much better than those in 2006 and somewhat better than those in 2004.  But the average for each senate candidate was higher in 2008 than 2004 because there were fewer of them.  RaDene Hatfield won 38 percent of the vote in 2008 and won two precincts.  In her own precinct (which also is Curt Bramble’s precinct), RaDene won 59 percent of the vote!  It seems that to know Bramble is to not vote for him.

Our House candidates picked up tens of thousands of votes in 2008.  Whereas in 2004, House candidates won 8, 577 votes, and even less in 2006, House candidates in 2008 won 40, 781 votes.   That is nearly a five-fold increase over 2004 and an over seven-fold increase over 2006!  Clearly, there were tens of thousands of voters in Utah County who voted Democratic who had not done so for a long time, perhaps ever.   Over and over again, our candidates were being told by voters that they voted for a Democrat for the first time in their lives.  These statistics validate what those people were saying.

Our candidates also picked up whole precincts.  While only one precinct went Democratic in 2004 and three in 2006, sixteen precincts were won by the Democratic candidate in 2008.  And these were scattered across the county – Provo, Orem, Salem, and Spanish Fork.    And our candidates got close in many other precincts.  While four precincts in 2004 and 2006 gave the Democratic candidate 40 percent or more of the vote, 57 precincts across the county did so in 2008.  That was over a fourteen-fold increase from the past.  Again, the precincts where we got a lot closer were across the county from Highland to Payson.

At the Congressional level, Jim Matheson keeps doing better and better in Utah County.  Between 2004 and 2008, his share of the vote increased 25 percent.  Our 3rd Congressional candidates still struggle.  That is something the county party needs to work on.

Finally, the share of the presidential vote is small compared to the national vote or the statewide vote for a Democratic presidential candidate.  However, that share did increase significantly.  Barack Obama did fifty percent better than John Kerry.  Perhaps President Obama will do even better in Utah County in 2012.

Some will say that this election proved that Democrats cannot win in Utah County.  This election actually shows the opposite.  Where Democratic candidates are well respected and work hard, they can win individual precincts.  And when a candidate wins enough of those individual precincts, he or she wins the district.  In the recent past, Democratic candidates have done well in their own precincts but typically not elsewhere.  This result showed that is no longer the case.  RaDene Hatfield, Steve Baugh, Claralyn Hill, and Debbie Swenson, for example, all won in precincts where they did not live.  Debbie even won in a city (Spanish Fork) where she does not live.

We did not elect any candidates this year.  But we got closer than we’ve gotten since the early 1990s.  And we’ve established a foundation for the next cycle that, with the same amount of effort, will result in electoral victory.

Richard Davis