Starting next week, Utah voters will open their ballots, fill in the ovals, and turn in their votes. We’re grateful for the chance to vote and hope you take this chance to have a say in who represents you. (Friendly reminder to check your voter registration!)
A candidate’s path to the general election ballot depends on several factors, including whether they are running in an even or odd year.
Even years like 2026 feature big-ticket races, where candidates for federal, state, and county positions vie for office. Think of federal positions like US House and Senate; state races like Utah State Governor, House, and Senate and state school board; and county-level races for commissioners or council, clerks, auditors, and more. Odd year elections are more local. That’s when Utahns select mayors, city and town councils, and (sometimes) local school board members.
The type of race determines timelines and rules for qualifying, which voters can participate, incentives for running, and even which kinds of candidates are most likely to succeed. What matters for getting on the ballot is whether the race is considered “partisan” or “nonpartisan.”
Nonpartisan elections
Odd years feature Utah’s nonpartisan elections for local office. The precise process for getting on the ballot varies slightly by area, but is generally straightforward. Starting in June of the election year, candidates must:
Meet residency and other requirements: 12+ months continuous residency, being of a sound mind, etc.
Potentially pay a small fee set by their city, often around $50 to cover paperwork
Fill out the required forms and financial disclosures.
Voilà! Meet the above and your name will appear on the ballot. That’s it.
Top-two candidate primaries
When more than two people file per seat, a primary election is held in August. That happens when more than 2 people run for the same school board seat or more than 6 people run for 3 council seats, for example. Every candidate who has properly completed paperwork automatically appears on the ballot—no signature-gathering needed.
The primary election whittles it down to the top two candidates per office. The remaining candidates appear on voters’ ballots in November.
All voters can participate
Perhaps most importantly: during nonpartisan elections all eligible voters within their district can vote, regardless of party affiliation. It’s an open election. Every voter within the district boundaries has a say in which candidates they want to represent them.
Since local races are officially nonpartisan, no party appears beside their name on the ballot itself (though some parties choose to endorse in these races). Winning comes down to campaigning to all voters: understanding the issues, showing up, meeting voters, and building relationships. Candidates typically take from June to November, a 5-month election cycle, to connect with voters and make their case. Campaigns tend to center on local issues, like streets and traffic, planning and zoning, rec centers, potholes, and taxes.
Candidly, we appreciate this kind of politics. We often see reasonable, pragmatic, moderate people elected at the local level (although party endorsements can change that). In the past few years, we’ve spoken with many committed, service-minded citizens who have won local races around the state and are happy that the outcomes usually reflect the majority of Utahns we know.
Contrast these nonpartisan races to Utah’s election process in years like this one.
Partisan elections
During even years every race is “partisan”.1 Utah holds partisan elections for every position from US Congress to county assessor. Most candidates must meet filing requirements and file to run in January, starting an 11-month election cycle.2
It can be very difficult to qualify for the general election ballot in partisan races, especially as the nominee for a major political party. Look at just how many candidates from earlier this year are either “out in convention” or “out in primary,” never making it to the general election. We note with sadness some really stellar candidates on that list.
Two paths
Since 2014’s SB54, partisan candidates have two paths to qualifying for the ballot:
Winning their party’s convention process
Gathering signatures to appear on their party’s primary ballot3
Or candidates can do both. Once they qualify, many candidates go through a primary, which in many cases functions as the “real” election, to make it onto the November ballot. Both paths are difficult and typically expensive. See Utah law about candidates, qualified political parties, write-in candidates, and more.
Signatures
Utah has the highest threshold for signatures of any state. This year, candidates needed 7,000 verified signatures to qualify for US House, 2,000 for state senate, and 1,000 for state house.
Signatures must come from voters registered with your party, who live within your district and haven’t already signed for another candidate for the same race. Which means up to 50% of signatures are rejected. While strong candidates often gather many signatures from volunteers (we’ve freely gathered for many candidates we believe in!) even with a robust volunteer base, paid signature-gathering firms are often needed. And prohibitively expensive for many candidates.
As a result, even strong candidates can fail to gather enough verified signatures to qualify. Setting the bar so high often means only candidates with a real war chest can compete—most often incumbents and big names.
Convention
The convention “path” to getting on the ballot varies by party. Smaller parties like the Libertarian, Independent American, and Forward Party may only have one candidate vying for the seat, making getting on the ballot as that party’s nominee relatively easy. (See Utah’s recognized political parties).4
Both Republican and Democratic parties typically have a competitive convention process. At their party conventions, candidates compete for delegate votes.5 Those who receive at least 60% of the delegate vote proceed as their party nominee, skipping a primary unless any opponents have successfully gathered signatures. When two candidates both receive between 40–60%, they proceed to a primary. No more than two candidates per office remain after the convention, unless more have qualified via signatures. See results for Utah’s 2026 Republican and Democratic conventions.
Running a serious convention campaign requires booths, signs, and lots of events, plus calls, emails, and flyers. Some candidates personally knock on every delegate’s door. Pursuing convention often means “wine-and-dining” delegates. As delegates, we’ve received fresh bread dropped off at our doorstep along with invitations to ice cream socials, private movie showings, food trucks, hot air balloon rides, and more.
Partisan candidates campaign amongst delegates who tend to hold more extreme partisan views than average voters. This leads to real differences in which candidates make it. In fact, when convention nominees face signature-gathering challengers, voters choose the signature candidate more often than not, as recently happened to Governor Cox.
Design affects outcomes
Election requirements and processes change the outcomes.
In nonpartisan elections, every eligible voter in the district can vote. Most of Utah’s partisan elections reduce the number of constituents casting votes through both convention and the primary, limiting decisions about which candidates move forward to a tiny percentage of voters.
The signature path currently requires thousands of signatures and winning a primary election. Contrast that to convention, which requires only 5–10% as many votes to win the same race. Typically, a total of about 60–100 delegates vote on a state House race, with around 100–200 delegates voting on a Senate race—depending on how many delegates show up that day. Candidates for county and state races often win at convention by only a few dozen votes, even for high offices, becoming their party’s nominee.
Yet arguably the most powerful way parties influence elections is by allowing only certain voters in the district to participate in the primary. This is called a closed primary, where voters must register with the party to have a say. In a state known for its extensive gerrymandering and few competitive districts, the leading party’s nominee often wins the general election.6
Utah’s Republican party requires voters to be registered party members to participate in a primary funded by all taxpayers. And with only around 50% of active Utah voters officially registered Republican, a significant portion of the electorate is currently prohibited from voting on which candidate(s) they’d like on the general ballot.
Another winnowing happens when the party enacts strict requirements for who can be their candidate. This year Major General David Harris, a candidate for Congressional District 3, was kicked off the Republican ballot because—although a longtime conservative—Mr. Harris had chosen to unaffiliate while in uniform to appear less partisan. Party officials later determined the 1-year affiliation rule didn’t apply to other candidates.
Form determines function
Change the incentives, change the outcome. You can see how the path candidates take onto the general election ballot varies significantly between Utah’s nonpartisan and partisan elections. Consequently, these elections produce very different results.
Unfortunately, some of Utah’s leaders are working to make more elections partisan. We hope the opposite happens—that Utah has the political will to fix the mismatch in getting on the ballot.
In our experience, Utah’s current system selects for extreme partisanship. Elected officials who feel more accountable to party leaders and delegates than the other 98% of their constituents. That’s one reason the Network of Utah Moderates typically prefers candidates who aren’t tightly controlled by party, including candidates who gathered signatures or ran for non-majority parties.
As Utahns who believe deeply in principled representation, we hope someday our county and state representatives are re-incentivized to represent all their voters. And may Utah voters prefer candidates who are striving to do so.
Except most local school board races—for now. The state school board recently became partisan and we’ve witnessed how much less functional the board has been since ideology has started to outweigh competence for the job.
Unaffiliated and write-in candidates face different (and often easier) signature thresholds, deadlines, and more. In many ways those are not partisan candidates, although they compete in the same races. For example, official write-in candidates often must file by September, just two months before Election Day. They also have a miniscule chance of prevailing.
Unaffiliated candidates must gather signatures, although they must obtain a lower threshold of signatures to appear on the ballot and residents don’t have to be registered with their political party to sign.
The Forward Party actually has a mechanism for its delegates to vote no on a potential candidate they don’t feel upholds their party’s principles, which happened earlier in 2026 in Utah when its delegates declined to endorse a candidate for federal office.
Delegates are selected earlier during neighborhood caucuses, a volunteer-run precinct-by-precinct process that, at least in our experience, may be the least secure way Utahns vote.
Footnote: the win rate for the GOP primary nominee was around 80% of all Utah races (Democratic candidates often prevail in parts of Salt Lake and Summit Counties) when we worked on a project in 2022. Couldn’t source that unfortunately and welcome updated numbers!