announcer: Funding for "The Hinckley Report" is provided in part by the Cleone Peterson Eccles Foundation Fund, Merit Medical, and by contributions to PBS Utah from viewers like you.

Thank you.

Jason Perry: Tonight on "The Hinckley Report."

After raucous conventions, delegates make their voices heard and select their primary candidates.

New lawsuits put some state leaders in the spotlight.

Major national issues hit close to home.

And our panel looks ahead to the big stories leading up to the election.

♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ Jason Perry: Good evening, and welcome to "The Hinckley Report."

I'm Jason Perry, Director of the Hinckley Institute of Politics.

Covering the week we have Kate Bradshaw, member of the Bountiful City Council; Max Roth, anchor with Fox 13 News; and Lindsay Aerts, reporter with KSL5 TV.

So glad to have you all on the program.

The season finale, we have a lot to talk about tonight, not just what's happened in the last week in politics, but maybe a little bit what we might see through the rest of the summer.

But let's start with the conventions.

The Republicans, Democrats met this past Saturday, we know who their candidates are going to be, some time-- at least in one case we might still be finding out who a lieutenant governor might be.

Lots of interesting things.

Kate, you were there all day with the Republicans.

Talk about that, because it started early and it went till midnight.

Kate Bradshaw: Yes, I was there starting at 7:30 a.m., and I was walking to my car at just after midnight.

It was a very long day.

I've been a delegate multiple times, this was the longest I've ever spent.

You know, there were definitely some logistical challenges for the party, and it led to a really long day.

Challenges with credentialing, getting people checked in, especially if you had a morning breakout session for a House or State Senate race.

And then, you know, there was an interesting logistical challenge of not having enough space to break out the congressional districts.

So, at any time during the convention, you had, you know, three fourths of delegates who had nothing to vote for but were kind of stuck, waiting for their turn to vote for their congressional candidates while we all waited for the US Senate race.

And, you know, the poor congressional districts from the fourth district didn't have anything, so they waited for hours and hours and hours till we got to that Senate race.

Max Roth: You know, Kate, I wonder, with your experience there, did you have the sense on the floor that that contributed to some of the rancor, you know, in the crowd, the fact that people were waiting so long, or--.

Kate Bradshaw: Yes, definitely.

I mean, I had packed snacks, but I was out of snacks, and the campaigns were out of pizza, and, you know, when you're there that many hours without-- with low blood sugar, and you're frustrated, and it feels like your time is not being well spent, I think it does contribute.

There was obviously a lot of feelings, big feelings going into the convention.

And so, you had big feelings, you add in frustration with the process, the timing, the lack of ability to get something to eat or drink, and it makes for a rough experience by the end.

Lindsay Aerts: If you've ever been to one of those conventions, which I have in the past, not this one this past Saturday, but you have to bring food, because there's never any food provided.

You have to have calories in you, otherwise people are going to get testy.

And what I think happened here in this convention was just-- I got a lot of reports of delegates really focused on SB54 and sort of not focused on, like, the, like, policy issues, more so focused on their their own, you know, vendetta with things that have happened in the past, right?

So, you couple the long day with the frustration people were feeling, and I think that's just where you saw people lash out, just some inappropriate behavior.

And I think it's also fair to say probably it wasn't everyone, but certainly the bad behavior of a few are making the whole thing-- painting the whole thing in a negative light.

Jason Perry: Max, let's talk about what these conventions are doing, because Lindsay mentioned the Senate Bill 54.

This was the bill, this is the compromise that allowed you to have two paths to the ballot, one through signatures, one through the convention system.

And so, we saw some interesting results from that, but a lot of people are talking this week about the makeup of that group.

This is 4,000 delegates, as I understand it, this is about 4% of Utah Republicans, and that 4-- those 4,000 came from what we saw was 9% turnout at the caucuses to elect them, which allowed a lot of people to talk about, you know, who are they representing, and what end of the spectrum do they really end up being on?

Max Roth: And I think clearly those who attend the convention are more diehard.

They tend to be further right than the broad sweep of Republicans in the state.

But from their perspective, they believe that they're the ones who are committed, they're the ones who feel strongly enough that they actually took the time to go, and they deserve to have that voice, because they've done the work leading up to it.

And so, and that is, I think, a really common-- that's a big part of what happens in Utah Republican circles, is that the folks who go to the conventions most think the convention should be the deciding factor, and it isn't anymore.

Kate Bradshaw: You know, the interesting thing is that there seems to be an element where some of the Republican party faithful and the delegates feel like you have to su-- like you almost have to suffer in order to be able to do this vetting, and that's not my favorite part of this process at all, but it was definitely suffering on Saturday.

But there is this, like, suffering for the ability to then be the person who gets to hold and vet and hold up the purity test.

And it's a weird element that seems to, in my opinion, be growing that almost conventions should be painful, which I worry is going to continue to erode those that turn out and erode the message that we're the-- a big tent party, because it definitely feels to me like when we're dealing with low caucus turnout and just a small fraction then of delegates representing a very small fraction of the overall Republican party, that doesn't feel like a very big tent.

Lindsay Aerts: Yeah, and I think you see it time again where these convention candidates that get elected at convention or nominated at convention, they don't go on to win the primary election.

And that's the biggest argument that is coming out of this most recent convention is a lot of people are saying-- and we don't have a crystal ball, but come June, you might see every single one of those convention candidates get beat by their primary challenger, right?

And that's happened in the past, and so it's just kind of this narrative that this fraction of the party is more-- I'll use the word extreme, but not extreme in that they're dangerous kind of way, but just they're that farther right fraction of the party, right?

And to be fair, they want a voice too, right?

So, the convention system is allowing them to pick their candidate, but when those candidates get to the broader primary electorate, we're not seeing that resonate with voters.

Jason Perry: So, Max, we have seen this in past.

You saw it with Governor Herbert, Senator Romney, Congressman Curtis, all did not win at convention but ended up winning by very large margins when it came to the primary.

Max Roth: You know what's really interesting?

And that is absolutely true.

In some ways I think about it like like a co-- the college basketball tournament, the final four.

You get the plucky little school, and because there's this big tournament that they can get into, you know, the big sky winner, Weber State can go and try and win it all, and that's what the convention has become, is the chance for the plucky upstart to get on to that primary ballot without spending tens, hundreds, millions of dollars to get signatures and become a part of, like, a two person race in this coming primary for governor.

Lindsay Aerts: And you know, sorry to interrupt you, but you know it can work, because you look at a candidate like Celeste Maloy, she could not have paid to gather signatures to get-- she had no name ID when she got elected as the second district congresswoman, right, out of that special convention.

She had no name ID, she had no money, so she put all her eggs in the delegate basket, and that was the only way she could have gotten elected.

Now, she has phenomenal experience being a staffer for congressman-- former Congressman Chris Stewart, and so somebody like that goes through the convention system in order to be able to get on the ballot.

So, that's why she's an advocate for it.

So, I feel like there needs to be a path there for candidates like that.

If we just go to direct primaries, it may be harder for candidates like that to just get on the ballot.

But I do think there is a lot of chatter happening behind the scenes of between caucus night on March 5 and the convention now, that the process isn't really working, by and large, right?

You have examples where it is working in Celeste Maloy, but in other instances, at large, it's not working where those primary candidates are winning over convention candidates.

And so, there's a lot of chatter about whether or not we switch up the system.

Jason Perry: Well, talk about that for just a second before we leave this, kind of the makeup of the convention, Kate, because this is something that Governor Cox talked about as he was being booed at this convention was that you all are giving ammunition to the people who think we should get rid of this system altogether.

Kate Bradshaw: Yeah, Governor Cox did bring that up.

Obviously, that drew a reaction from the bulk of the crowd that feels like this is a very sacred process and it needs to stay, but it is absolutely starting a conversation.

You know, as I was sitting with people from Bountiful that were also delegates, you know, one is a-- was a mom with a six-month-old baby.

At a certain point, you have to go home.

You've exhausted all the nursing supplies.

This disconnect of who is showing up here versus the turnout you-- we've seen now for many years since, you know, SB54 has been in place, we have a disconnect, and you're absolutely right that the conversations are happening.

It's really all I've heard in political circles be talked about for this last week is does this system work?

Should it be changed?

How do you still allow for the, you know, the plucky candidate to have a path?

But how do you make sure that this is really representative of what the bulk of the Republican party feels?

Lindsay Aerts: And I will also say that Governor Cox has taken a lot of heat for the speech that he gave at convention.

You've-- I've seen at least four county Republican party leaders come out and put statements out online calling on Cox to rescind his comments, right?

They-- the delegates felt offended by his speech that they were there trying to get the vote, putting in their due diligence, spending ten--seventeen hours, right, on a Saturday in late April, and they felt dismissed by his comments.

Now, his comments are kind of the quiet part out loud.

They're a little bit like he feels like they don't-- that he's not as extreme as they want him to be, right?

You don't-- "You hate that I don't hate enough," is what he said.

And so, he points that part out, and they just didn't really like the sentiment of those comments.

Max Roth: I agree with you on that, with the caveat that what they really seemed to disagree with, and what he feels like they disagree with, is his tone, is the way that he tends to, what is it, disagree better?

Is that his-- with the National Governors Association.

He feels like they don't like him, what he actually-- what he said, and it was, "You hate me because I don't hate enough."

Clearly that's something that was a quiet part out loud.

Lindsay Aerts: Yeah, I don't know that it was a threat to say, "Shape up or the convention's going away."

I didn't really see it as a threat.

I saw it more of a like, hey, you guys are gonna lose this process if this continues to happen, and then we continued to see bad behavior, right?

And the boos are normal, Cox gets booed all the time.

I ran into Mike Mower, one of his senior advisers, the day before the convention, he's like, "Tomorrow will be rough for us.

We know this is coming," right?

It's not a surprise that delegates booed him.

They don't tend to like him.

But, you know, Cox got up there and just said, "Listen, you guys are gonna lose this process if we don't shape up."

And so, I think, yeah, they felt offended by it, and that is totally their right, but I do think he was kind of saying the quiet part out loud.

Kate Bradshaw: The interesting thing is it's not just the behavior between the candidates and the delegates, but sometimes the behavior that day between delegates, you know, people that might have been wearing a certain candidate shirt or button or hat.

You know, there were lots of different reports and things I definitely observed and experienced where it felt really personal, and at times, you know, just not welcoming, depending on, you know, whether you were, you know, wearing the garb of a certain campaign.

And I found that to be almost even more disappointing.

I've been a county delegate as well.

Davis County convention Cox was booed, so it was normal-- not normal, but expected, because he'd experienced it in all these county conventions leading up.

But the-- it was disappointing, sometimes, to see how other just regular people were treating other regular people who quite frankly were all giving up the same Saturday, had all been selected by their neighbors to come and do this duty.

And I found that personally to be very disheartening.

Jason Perry: One interesting thing to come out of these conventions is that we have big numbers of people in these primaries, because the signature gathering and the people they chose.

So, I wanna get to a couple of these races.

And Max, I wanna start with the Senate race, because we saw who these representatives, the delegates, really loved, and then we're gonna get to get a chance to vote on other people anyway.

This is interesting, a four person primary for the Senate on the Republican side.

This is John Curtis, Brad Wilson, Jason Walton, Trent Staggs.

Of all those people, Trent Staggs is the one that the delegates chose, 70% on the fourth ballot.

Talk about this, because this is the first time we've had four candidates on the Republican side in a primary.

Max Roth: And, you know, Trent Staggs was one-- was first in, I think, as far as I know, the first person to actually declare his candidacy.

And everyone thinking, "What, the mayor of Riverton is-- wants to be the US senator?

Well, good luck."

But, and nothing against Riverton, it's just it's not the biggest city in the state and not a real high profile position, but he got the Donald Trump endorsement.

Lindsay Aerts: I was just going to say, I think this race is John Curtis's to lose.

He just has the highest name ID as a sitting congressman right now, you know, he's been in office for a while, he has everything going for him.

Money, right?

Just the name ID.

But the Trump endorsement will be interesting to watch, because that plays well at convention.

How well does it play in a primary?

I'm not sure it translates to a broader primary, and then you have some candidates in the middle there who can they get enough name ID?

You know, Brad Wilson, former Speaker of the House, right?

We all know him, right, because we've worked with him, but does his name resonate to a broader--.

Max Roth: He's spending a lot of money.

Lindsay Aerts: Yeah, and a lot of his own money too, right?

So, will that pay off?

I do think John Curtis has a real leg up in this race just based on name ID and money.

Kate Bradshaw: You know what's interesting is as they went through the rounds of balloting, John Curtis is the one that stays, right?

And it becomes in the final round Staggs-Curtis, right?

And-- but they're drawing a stark contrast between each other.

And so, I thought that was really interesting, that even though John Curtis didn't win the convention, he still stays, and that sets up, you know, a very interesting dynamic.

And, you know, of all the mailers that I was getting as a delegate, and those senate candidates sent a lot of mailers, you know, John Curtis's were those that had more of an even, moderate, even-keeled tone.

The others were playing off some of the high profile social issues that we're seeing right now, you know, border, things like that.

A lot of them wanting to include, you know, Donald Trump-esque kind of affiliations, even if they didn't have his official nomination.

Lindsay Aerts: You can tell in their language.

Kate Bradshaw: Yeah, and so it's just interesting to me that even though Curtis was setting up obviously this comparison, he still stays through all these rounds.

And so, I think that makes an interesting matchup to watch in the Senate race.

Max Roth: That's really a contrast.

I'm surprised to hear that, because, you know, I'm not-- I'm a reporter, I don't get delegate mailers.

And Curtis's-- oh boy, you have a pile.

The television ads, because Curtis is running a lot, Wilson as well, the-- are very much going right with Curtis.

It's all border, it's all budget, and Biden.

You know, it's just-- it's very, very far to the right for a Curtis campaign.

Jason Perry: Just one more thing, because it's about this race, but about a couple others we'll talk about here just a moment, Lindsay, is when you start getting four or five people in a primary, you kind of lose-- you lose the opportunity to have someone with 51% or 50%.

You start looking at someone that has maybe you win with 30% of the vote.

Lindsay Aerts: Yeah, that's going to be interesting to see.

That happened, right, in 2020 with the governor's race, right?

Huntsman and Cox, I think Cox won with 37% or something like that.

And so, yeah, and then you just have their detractors come out and say, "Well, you didn't win a majority, right?

You only won 37% of the vote."

But the system we have set up right now allows for this, right?

So, if we want to solve the plurality issue, we've gotta talk that, you know, situation along with convention, right?

So, this is really a plurality issue, just the way we have it set up between the convention system and signature gathering allows for this plurality on the ballot.

Jason Perry: Lindsay, since you did some great reporting on this and it's happening right now, so we're talking about the governor's race and the lieutenant governor's race.

What was interesting in-- with the Phil Lyman, he was the one that came out at the winner at convention, he chose Layne Bangerter as his lieutenant governor, and the lieutenant governor's office said, "Not qualified to be lieutenant governor," because the case is being heard today.

Give us a little primer on that.

Lindsay Aerts: Yeah, so we expect a judge to weigh in on whether ballot printing can be paused in order for this case to be taken up, right?

That's what we're deciding in court today.

But, yeah, Phil Lyman's pick not eligible, according to the Lieutenant Governor's office.

This independent opinion came down from former Lieutenant Governor Greg Bell, and Phil Lyman is doubling down that he disagrees with the way the constitution reads, right?

It's this whole language of five years next preceding the election.

A lot of people are interpreting that to mean the immediate five years before an election.

Phil Lyman believes the opposite, that it's any five years within however long, right?

And so, we may not get a decision on what the language specifies, because if today a judge says, "No, we're not gonna pause this," then I don't know that it can move forward.

We might just have to go with what the lieutenant governor has decided, right?

But Phil Lyman is also arguing election interference here.

He's arguing that the Lieutenant Governors office didn't even allow Layne Bangerter to fill out his candidacy, right?

And his argument is he should just be able to declare, get on the ballot, and then we let someone challenge it, right?

And so, because Langerter's-- sorry, Bangerter, Layne Bangerter is not even on the ballot, there's no way for people to vote for him.

So, that'll be interesting to watch how it all plays out.

Jason Perry: Okay, so it's interesting, so, Greg Bell is this independent adviser, and he's basing his recommendation on the constitution and on the law.

And there's this conversation about policies and whether or not you should be allowed.

It's interesting, but what-- how does this really play out?

Because, you know, I know we have a ruling today, how does this play out in this governor's race?

Kate Bradshaw: You know, there's definitely a portion of the delegates and a portion of the party, you know, that is-- that obviously is very excited about Lyman, and they're seeing this is as they want to spin this as a way that because the lieutenant governor oversees the elections office that this is, like, some, you know, impropriety or not playing fair.

Of course, they have set up an independent person, Former Lieutenant Governor Greg Bell is-- has been put in place to make sure there's distance between the lieutenant governor in her day job capacities and lieutenant governor in her candidate capacities to do these issues.

But they wanna set up that this is kind of an election interference angle.

You know, they have-- it was-- it blew up immediately after the convention.

It was all over, you know, social media, different camps crossposting.

I did find it interesting that there was, you know, some legal precedent found and quickly shared from a similar case.

Yeah, previous lawsuit, and it does seem to side with the way that the elections office has interpreted this, that it does matter that it's the immediate five years proceeding.

Lindsay Aerts: But what about Ohio, Kate?

Ohio's Supreme Court weighed in too, and that's what Phil Lyman is arguing.

Can I point out one other thing though?

From convention a little known fact is that the delegates ratified Layne Bangerter as a lieutenant governor, they did not ratify Lieutenant Governor Deidre Henderson.

So, this is something that the delegates are-- have to do per the bylaws, right, is take a vote of ratification of a governor's lieutenant governor pick, and they ratified Layne Bangerter, they did not ratify lieutenant governor.

Now, I don't know that it matters in terms of Governor Cox and Lieutenant Governor Henderson are on the ballot either way, because it's the state that controls the ballot.

But just interesting to point out that the delegates did not support, did not ratify the ticket of Cox-Henderson.

I don't totally know what that means.

Maybe you guys could shed some light on it, but it was just an interesting play.

Max Roth: They got signatures, so it might be moot just because of that.

Lindsay Aerts: Yeah, exactly, but.

Jason Perry: Can we talk about a couple of the races really quickly that were very interesting.

Max, let's start with Congressional District 2.

This is Congresswoman Celeste Maloy, challenger Colby Jenkins.

Wow, when it comes to endorsements and how this played out, talk about that, because this was the talk of the convention.

Max Roth: Well, Mike Lee, who really owes his job and his career to the convention system, because before they changed things, it's-- Bob Bennett probably would have been re-elected if he'd had signatures in a primary option.

So, but Mike Lee, he, boy, he loves to be a little bit of a spoiler and to stand up and surprise people.

And what he did this time was stand up and say that he supports Colby Jenkins instead of Celeste Maloy.

The primary problem that Republican delegates had with Maloy and other Republicans that I've been listening to have with her is that she voted for the bill that allowed for Ukraine aid, Israeli aid as well.

And when that vote was just taken a couple of weeks ago.

And so, it's that kind of willingness to vote with something that doesn't fall along those pure lines that Lee decided was a step too far.

Lindsay Aerts: But the issue here really is Maloy's vote on the FISA bill, because, in my reporting, I've had conversations with Celeste Maloy about this, Mike Lee calls her before the convention, and they had had several conversations about this FISA bill.

Mike Lee wanted her to oppose it.

She voted for it, and she explained her vote and all of that, but in the wake of that you see him come out and endorse her challenger, someone he had never met before.

So, it is a really curious move that he sort of put his thumb on this race right after that incident, whatever happened, whatever phone calls were happening between them, right?

And so, it appears-- and I'm not in Mike Lee's head, nor have I talked to him, so it's not really fair to say he punished her, right?

But it appears that way, right?

When he's basically, right, after this conversation comes out and takes aim at her race, she's the only one who gathered signatures.

I'm pretty sure the other members of the federal delegation as well voted the same way she did for the FISA Bill, and he didn't take aim in any of their races, so it's just really curious.

Kate Bradshaw: You know, Celeste actually bet it all on the convention, so that was an important component here.

I will say Congressman Owens came and supported her, so that was an interesting thing that was at play.

You know, he came up on stage with her and talked about how he trusts her.

And then I think Celeste gave just an incredible speech, kind of counterpunching back about how, you know, she is going to represent the people, and she's not going to be anyone's pawn.

She gave a very strong statement there that, interestingly, I think did resonate with a lot of the delegates there that, that, you know, she is capable of making those decisions.

She had weighed all the options.

As a former staffer, I can tell you, Celeste gets into the details of every bill.

She understands them, and so that was a really strong kind of counterpunch just after that Mike Lee endorsement.

Jason Perry: That's gonna have to be the last comment tonight.

Thank you for your insights.

We can't wait to see how these play out over the coming months, and thank you for watching "The Hinckley Report."

This show is also available as a podcast on PBSUtah.org/HinckleyReport or wherever you get your podcasts.

Thank you for being with us this season.

We'll see you again in the fall.

announcer: Funding for "The Hinckley Report" is provided in part by the Cleone Peterson Eccles Foundation Fund, Merit Medical, and by contributions to PBS Utah from viewers like you.

Thank you.

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