Daily Herald, May 10, 2011
Billy Hesterman

Will Matheson, the new chairman of the Utah County Democrats, will have his work cut out for him.
Matheson, a BYU student and former president of the BYU College Democrats, was named chairman at the Utah County Democratic convention last week. He now faces the task of growing and energizing the small number of Democrats who reside in Utah County.

"My goal is to continue increasing the votes cast for local Democratic candidates in Utah County and win seats in 2012," Matheson said. "I want to get the message out there that Republican dominance in Utah County is unhealthy and unrepresentative."

Matheson said he feels that legislators who currently represent the county have been essentially elected at the convention level and not in general elections. He says he hopes to work hard to create a competitive two-party system where the county's elected officials are held accountable.

"Their constituency is a small group of extremists and political activists," he said. "They do not intend to represent the views of the average Utah County voter."

Matheson will face the challenging stereotype that members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the dominant religion of the county, will always support Republicans because the Republican Party platform is more in step with the church's doctrine. Matheson says most people know that stereotype isn't true.
"We don't represent the church, and neither does the Republican Party," Matheson said. "The fact that people think the Republican Party does represent the church is completely wrong. I think some people would be surprised to find that most of their views match our political party and in a lot of cases, more than the Republican Party. Take the immigration issue for example, also ethics reform, education and the changes to GRAMA."

Outgoing chairman of the party Richard Davis noted that the outlook for Democrats within the Utah County borders currently looks bleak.

"I think we are going to see it will be a long time before we see much two-party competition with the Democratic Party being the competition," Davis said. "Utah County voters are going to look on their ballots and see one candidate and that's a Republican. That is very sad."

Democrats have a lot of ground to make up in the county. In the 2010 general election, more than 100,000 ballots were cast from Utah County. Of that 100,000, only 4,054 voted straight ticket for the Democratic Party. Peter Corroon, the Democratic candidate for governor, received only 15,372 votes in the county. In 2008, President Barack Obama received 18 percent of the votes cast in the county.