Former Democratic congressman launches comeback bid in new Salt Lake City district

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — The most recent Democrat to represent Utah in Congress announced Thursday his bid to return to Washington after a judge adopted a new congressional map creating a heavily Democratic-leaning district in the state.

Former U.S. Rep. Ben McAdams will run in a new district centered on Salt Lake County, Utah’s population center and an island of Democratic support in an otherwise red state. He was once the county’s mayor, then its state senator, and represented much of the area within his previous congressional district from 2019 to 2021.

The new district is the result of a legal battle in which a judge struck down the map adopted after the 2020 census because the Republican-led Legislature had bypassed standards established by voters to ensure districts don’t deliberately favor a party, a practice known as gerrymandering. Late Monday, Judge Dianna Gibson again rejected a revised map drawn by lawmakers and adopted one from voting rights groups who were plaintiffs in the case.

With the ruling, Democrats are all but certain to flip a seat in Utah, where Republicans currently hold all four U.S. House districts.

Nationally, Democrats need to net three House seats next year to wrest control of the chamber from the GOP and impede President Donald Trump’s agenda. Several Republican-led states have responded to calls from Trump to add winnable seats for the party through mid-decade redistricting. But Democrats have been fighting back to try to offset GOP gains.

McAdams, a moderate Democrat, could face a full slate of candidates to his political left who see an opportunity for Utah to send a more progressive politician to Capitol Hill. While in Congress, he was a member of the Blue Dog Coalition, a group of centrist Democrats viewed widely as the party’s most conservative House members.

State Sen. Kathleen Riebe also launched a bid for the seat this week. In her announcement, the former teacher pledged to be a strong voice for Democrats in Congress and an advocate for working families. She served on the Utah Board of Education from 2017 to 2018 and has been in the state Senate since 2019.

Competition is good for democracy, McAdams told The Associated Press in an interview Thursday. But he argued his experience and deep connections in the community make him the right person to represent the Salt Lake City area.

McAdams said he thinks Washington under Trump is broken and needs leaders who have shown they can stand up to the Republican president. He went on to criticize Trump for sending troops into cities, splitting apart immigrant families and prosecuting his political opponents.

“I think people know me. I am somebody who brings people together to get stuff done, but I’m also somebody who stands for what I believe in, and I’m not afraid to stand alone if that’s what’s required,” McAdams said, noting he voted to impeach Trump in 2019 despite knowing it could cost him reelection.

The following year, McAdams lost his reelection bid to former NFL player Burgess Owens, a Republican, by less than a percentage point. Owens was reelected in 2022, after the district was reconfigured to include more rural areas, and again in 2024.

During his 2018 campaign, McAdams described having anti-abortion views. He said he had deep personal beliefs about the sanctity of life but that decisions about terminating a pregnancy should be made by a woman in consultation with her doctors, family and faith counselors.

The former congressman said Thursday that the reality across the country has since changed dramatically, with the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade in 2022.

“We’re seeing women denied access to health care all across the country, even leading to preventable deaths in several tragic cases,” McAdams said. “Because of that, I would vote to restore a woman’s right to choose and vote to codify Roe.”

He and Riebe are running in the new 1st Congressional District for the seat held by Republican Blake Moore. District lines and numbering changed significantly under the new map, meaning Moore’s northern Utah district is geographically very different from the new 1st District.

Matt Lusty, a spokesperson for Moore’s campaign, said the congressman will run again for one of Utah’s four seats.

Democratic state Sen. Nate Blouin told the AP on Thursday that he, too, is “leaning strongly towards” running in the new 1st District. Blouin said voters in Salt Lake County deserve a progressive voice and have “a generational opportunity to rewrite Utah’s narrative.”

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Associated Press writer Mead Gruver contributed from Fort Collins, Colorado.