The Utah Democratic Party has decided to back the independent candidacy of former presidential candidate Evan McMullin over Democrat Kael Weston in a bid to unseat two-term Republican Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) later this year.
Democrats have long struggled to attract even 30 percent of the vote in the deep-red state. In 2016, Lee raked in 68.2 percent of the vote to Democrat Misty Snow’s 27.1 percent. During that year’s presidential election, Hillary Clinton received only 27.5 percent of the vote.
While Republican candidate Donald Trump in 2016 took the state with 45.5 percent of the vote, the conservative independent McMullin, a former CIA agent and Utah local, grabbed 21.5 percent.
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