Democratic Rep. Ben McAdams is trying to show his 2018 win wasn’t a fluke in deep-red Utah. In November, he’ll have to beat a challenge from Republican star Burgess Owens, a former NFL player and a frequent guest on Fox News.
McAdams, a Columbia Law School graduate and a longtime player in Utah politics, won his Salt Lake City seat by defeating Republican Rep. Mia Love, the party’s first and only black woman in Congress, in a contest decided by about 700 votes.
Now McAdams, a former state senator and mayor of Salt Lake County, is the incumbent and faces a spirited challenge from Owens, 68.
Owens received the endorsement of President Trump. Owens’s campaign has been going after McAdams, 45, in the hopes of flipping the House seat back under Republican control. Republicans would need to win at least 17 seats to reclaim the House majority they lost in 2018. An analysis by the nonpartisan Cook Political Report currently projects that Democrats may pick up House seats and maintain control in addition to the possibility of being able to flip the Republican-controlled Senate.
The Utah race is likely to be one of the nation’s most competitive House contests. McAdams ran his 2018 campaign with the theme that he would govern as a bipartisan member of Congress. A signature promise he followed through on was voting against House Speaker Nancy Pelosi when she ran unopposed to lead House Democrats in 2019.
McAdams is also the co-chairman of the Blue Dog Coalition, a fiscally centrist group of Democrats. He has been outspoken on the urgency of needing to pass a coronavirus relief package when Congress hit a stalemate.
Owens, a strong Trump ally, would be among a small group of black Republicans in Congress. He is focusing on the theme of “God, country, and family first.” At the virtual Republican National Convention, Owens made a play for Trump’s record on race, an issue that has dominated the political landscape following the death of George Floyd by the hands of police in Minneapolis on May 25.
Owens spoke about growing up in the South during the Jim Crow era and alluded to his great-great-grandfather, who came to the United States on a slave ship. His pitch focused on creating opportunities and touting Trump’s economic agenda for minorities.
