Approximately 330,000 people voted in the County (out of 883,000 statewide). McCain won Salt Lake County by a mere 1883 votes. If two extra people per precinct in Salt Lake County had voted Obama, Obama would have carried Salt Lake County by 95 votes. Given some other results at the county level, that’s not improbable.

Salt Lake County’s votes for Peter Corroon, for instance, give me hope. Corroon beat Renkert by 110,000 votes (verly nearly two to one).

At the congressional level, parts of the county are in all three districts; 57% of congressional votes in the county went to Democratic candidates (if Salt Lake chose our House delegations we’d have two Dems and one R). Matheson received 129,000 votes in Salt Lake County – almost three to one over challenger Bill Dew. Matheson’s 80,000 vote leat in the county gives him a cushion for the rest of his district where he ekes out a relatively narrow 53% win. To put it another way, Salt Lake County voters provide almost 60% of Utah Second’s voters and Matheson gets such a huge lead in the county that he could lose in the rest of his district and win re-election (in fact, Matheson lost in Utah and Washington County precincts). When the Republicans in the Legislature last redistricted, they were doing everything in their power to dilute the influence of the Counties voters – they chopped and sliced the county into as many little bits as possible and attacked them to parts of other counties in an attempt to keep Democratic candidates from winning. FWIW, in a few years expect it get even bloodier and uglier when it’s time to redistrict – Utah’s elected Republicans are growing more screamingly wingnutty, not less.

If we ever hope to create a strong progressive movement in Utah, it has to start in Salt Lake County.
The county is home to a slightly more than a million of the state’s residents – more than one third of Utah’s population. Salt Lake County’s voters cast 37.8% of Utah’s votes in 2008 presidential election. Salt Lake County’s million-plus residents have are more racially, ethnically, religiously and sexually diverse than the state as a whole. Home to Utah’s two most populous cities (Salt Lake and West Valley), Salt Lake County is almost entirely urban, and growing more urban with each passing year. All of these trends should favor progressive and democratic candidates. And at the county government level, they do.
The bad news, though, occurs when you look at the State level races – Governor, Attorny General, State Auditor, and Treasurer. In all those races, County voters voted for the Republican candidate. Auditor and Treasurer were close but the other races were decisive. There, is however, a mismatch
The Governor’s race in particular hurt – Hunstman received over 230,000 votes to Springmeyer’s 95,000. Statewide, Huntsman received more than 3/4 of the votes.

At the Presidential level, McCain beat Obama in Davis, Utah, Weber and Washington counties by 172,000 votes. Of 142,000 votes cast in Utah County, 111,000 were cast for McCain. Assuming a Democratic candidate gets a Hunstman-esque or Corroon-esque win in Salt Lake County, almost the entire difference vanishes in Utah County.
For now, we have to face the hard facts that Utah County – for an array of reasons that can be summed up as “so Mormon it makes your butt hurt” – is not going to be electing progressives any time soon. Utah County has historically been the most republican county in the most republican state in the union. Charles Manson could run as a Republican and win in Utah County – even if Christ himself were the Democratic candidate. So we can write that county off. I think it’s safe to say Davis County is in the same boat. Weber and Washington counties may be movable but that’s down the road.
So for now, the plan has to focus on Salt Lake County.
And the first number we need to remember is 1883 – that should motivate us. In a county that voted two to one for a Democratic Mayor, there’s no reason a Democratic candidate should have lost by less than 2000 votes.
If you are bright – and you are – you may ask why Chris Buttars is going back to the Legislature.
Buttars may have won re-election but he didn’t cross the 50% threshhold. If you look at the map, you realize Buttars represents what may be the most Republican and conservative part of the valley – the south west corner. The House seats that overlap with his Senate district all have Republicans in them. That Buttars came as close to losing as he did should surprise us.
A couple things need to happen. We need to keep Rendell active and in the public eye (a la Seegmiller). In four years, Buttars will be vulnerable again – a strong challenge by the same candidate should enable us to flip that seat. We need to keep the pressure on Buttars; with him, fortunately, it’s not a matter of if but when he will do and say something extraordinarily stupid. When he does, we need to hit him hard with the “ineffective” label. Buttars tendency to say stupid things may be a function of his utter lunatic wingnuttery but the bigot label tends to create a backlash. The real problem is that when Buttars is re-afflicted with foot in mouth disease, it renders him incapable of representing his district. Suddenly he can’t talk to voters, he doesn’t speak on the floor, he can’t introduce legislation. The problem isn’t that Buttars is a loud-mouthed bigoted asshole, it’s that he’s a bad legislator.
I’m optimistic we flip the south end of the County for two reasonsreason: House 48. Trisha Beck beat Republican stalwart Lavar Christensen this year. And House 51: Greg Hughes barely held onto his seat this year.
So, given what I’ve laid out here, I’m actually more excited about the idea of getting bloggers and progressives together and mapping out ways to turn Utah Purple.

What are you thoughts? How does this happen? What do we do?