SALT LAKE CITY (AP) - The Latest on a Utah special election to replace Jason Chaffetz in the U.S. House of Representatives (all times local):
3:40 p.m.
A Republican Utah mayor celebrating a primary win will have to fend off competitors linking him to embattled President Donald Trump as he prepares for the general election to replace Jason Chaffetz in the U.S. House of Representatives.
John Curtis, the popular mayor of the Mormon stronghold of Provo, won a GOP primary Tuesday in Utah after fending off two challengers in Utah’s 3rd Congressional District who were both backed by further-right conservatives and tried to handicap him for having once been a Democrat.
The win gives him a heavy advantage in the November special election. But Curtis’s opponents have already cast him as the candidate of Trump and his party.
Jim Bennett, the first candidate of a new centrist United Utah Party, says Curtis is good man but should feel uncomfortable in the “Party of Trump.”
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1 a.m.
A Utah mayor overcame $1 million in attacks from out-of-state groups to win a three-way Republican primary in the race to fill a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives vacated by Jason Chaffetz.
The primary win puts Provo Mayor John Curtis on an easy path toward victory in the November general election. Republicans outnumber Democrats 5-to-1 in Utah’s 3rd Congressional District. Chaffetz represented the district until June when he abruptly resigned, citing a desire to spend more time with family.
Curtis is a former Democrat who changed parties in 2006. He struck the most moderate tone among the GOP candidates in Tuesday’s primary.
In the November special election, he faces Democratic physician Kathie Allen and third-party candidate Jim Bennett, son of the late GOP Sen. Bob Bennett of Utah.
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