About political endorsements...
Something to consider as you sift through your piles of campaign mailers this year.
Endorsements can be powerful indicators of someone’s support—but they may not always be quite as they seem.
If you’re a voter in a competitive primary, your mailbox—and email inbox, and text messages—might be filling up with candidate mailers. What you’ll notice in most races are the endorsements front and center. In a perfect world, the best candidate for each seat would garner the biggest, best endorsements.
Unfortunately, we find this is not always true. This is politics, after all.
Some officials are reluctant to publicly endorse the people they support privately, for a variety of reasons. Moreover, endorsements generally favor incumbents. We find that often party endorsements—the candidate selected during convention—may not reflect important Utah values.
Endorsements favor incumbents
Whether in national or local races, incumbency bias (the tendency for people already in office to win re-election) tends to be strong. It’s simply easier to imagine someone doing the job who is already doing the job.
Some incumbents are good leaders who remain accessible and try hard to represent their constituents well. Others do not. Either way, endorsements typically go to the most well-known candidate, often the person already doing the job.
Why is this?
Reason 1: Incumbents are already known
People who already in office have a record. Their positions and abilities are already familiar to the people they’ll be working with—and relationships really matter in politics.
In some scenarios, folks live by the adage “the devil you know is better than the devil you don’t know” and stick with incumbents they don’t like. Frankly, we’ve found ourselves supporting the person we know how to work with, even when we know they don’t live up to our values.
Reason 2: Incumbents have a proven ability to win (and $$$)
Money matters in elections. Lobbyists, PACs, and others like to donate to winners, since incumbents’ “electability” and ability to fundraise is already proven.
Since name recognition builds momentum (plus political signs, mailers, and ads can run very costly), fundraising tends to be an important part of winning elections. (Friendly reminder to donate efforts or money to good candidates near you to help counteract this!)
Reason 3: Endorsing a powerful incumbent mitigates risk for the leaders endorsing them
Withholding an endorsement can prove costly to political and business leaders, especially if they choose not to endorse a powerful incumbent favored by current party or legislative leadership.
This is a real risk. We (quite unfortunately) know of local officials here in Utah who have faced threats that their constituents, city, or county may lose needed funding or face other political repercussions should they endorse another candidate.
Not endorsing a candidate (or worse, endorsing their opponent) can lower their ability to get things done—especially if the candidate is known to be petty. Especially if they believe the incumbent is likely to win. Because once the election is over, current officials will likely need to work with this person again.
Party endorsements
In a one-party supermajority state with few competitive seats between parties, party endorsements become important. Let’s back up a moment to explain how candidates qualify to appear on your primary ballot… it’s not just filing to run.
Utah law currently allows for two “paths” to get on your primary ballot and become your party’s nominee.
Path 1: Convention
The more traditional path is convention. Delegates elected at neighborhood caucuses meet at county and state conventions and vote on their preferred candidate.
Depending on the size of the race, candidates may receive anywhere from a few dozen delegate votes (for offices like state representative) to several hundred delegate votes (for bigger races like US representative). For example, this year Alexis Wheeler got the GOP nomination for House District 29 after receiving just 26 votes at the state convention. See the full results.
When two candidates both receive 40–60% of their party delegates’ votes at convention, they both head to a primary. Candidates who receive 60%+ of the vote at convention skip a primary unless someone else has successfully gathered enough verified signatures.
This happens more than you think. Most Utah voters don’t get a say in their party’s representation unless they participate in the caucus-convention process.
Path 2: Signature gathering
The second “path” to the primary ballot was established in 2014 under SB54, which allowed for candidates to gather signatures from voters in their district.1
To qualify to appear on the primary ballot, candidates must gather some threshold of signatures from voters registered with their party: 1,000 verified signatures for state representative, 2,000 signatures for state senator, etc.2
Becoming your party’s nominee
Sometimes political parties claim that their convention winner is their party’s nominee even before the majority of their party’s voters are consulted. We find this practice unfortunate, particularly since a small group of often-extreme delegates are the only ones voting at convention.
Candidates who gather signatures often meet with hundreds or thousands more voters from their party (and not just delegates) to get on the ballot. In our view, signature-gathering candidates often have more on-the-ground experience and stay more responsive to all their constituents, rather than just to a handful of party delegates.
Do endorsements matter?
Yes, just use caution. Endorsements can be helpful, especially endorsements from people who actually know and have worked with the candidate. Endorsements can highlight competence and a real record of doing good in office—or they can manipulate. Both happen.
So before you’re swayed, think about what may have incentivized someone to endorse this candidate. Might they have been disincentivized from endorsing opponents? And know that occasionally, endorsements are coerced, falsified, or made up outright.
We share this to explain the real dynamics that new candidates face when challenging current elected officials. Endorsements for big races almost always favor political insiders.3
Endorsements are wonderful when given freely, and unfortunate when otherwise. We advise taking endorsements of powerful incumbents with a grain of salt. Stay curious. If you have questions, reach out to the person making the endorsement. You may get more of the story.
Learn more about the history of SB54, which is still controversial among some people today (we often hear it denigrated by Republican leaders and delegates at GOP events).
See the official candidate packet for signature thresholds. Note that voters can only sign for one candidate per race, which can make signatures tricky, particularly when more than one candidate is seeking signatures. This year’s crowded Democratic race for CD1 is a prime example of the difficulty of gathering enough signatures; several candidates failed to get enough to qualify for the primary.
In our experience local races, like school board or city council, are less often problematic, although the same pressures with regards to incumbency and party endorsements can apply.