Republicans sweep elections in San Juan County, Utah and U.S.

by David Boyle
News Director
Nearly 6,000 San Juan County residents cast votes in the 2024 general election on November 5. The results were another sweep for Republicans locally, in statewide office, and nationally.
In a contested race for San Juan County Recorder, incumbent Republican Cindi Holyoak earned a 397 vote lead over Democrat challenger Stacey Steele. Holyoak has 3,033 votes, compared to 2,636 votes for Steele.
In non-partisan school board races, Ron Nielson earned 771 votes compared to 398 votes for Fritz Pipkin to represent district one.
In school board district four, Lucille Cody earned 574 votes compared to 392 votes for Luanita M Etsitty.
Nan Barton also won an uncontested rate for a full-term to represent school board district two.
In other county results, four uncontested Republicans earned terms, including Lori Muaghan to represent county commission district one, Rick Meyer as county assessor, Brad Bunker as county surveyor, and Glenis Pearson as county treasurer.
In the race for Utah Governor, incumbent Republican Spencer Cox earned 36.13 percent of the San Juan County vote, while Democrat Brian King earned 32.26 percent of the vote, and Blanding resident Phil Lyman earned 27.08 percent of the vote running a write-in campaign.
Statewide, Cox has earned 55.33 percent of the vote, with King claiming 30.21 percent and Lyman earning 9.36 percent.
In a race for the Utah State House of Representatives, two Blanding residents ran to replace Phil Lyman to represent Utah House District 69.
Republican Logan Monson earned 3,282 of San Juan County votes (56.67 percent) and Democrat Davina Smith earned 2,509 (43.33 percent).
Across the District, which includes Grand, Kane, Wayne, Garfield and parts of Emery County, Monson earned 12,919 (62.44 percent) votes, with Smith earning 7,772 (37.56 percent).
At the top of the ticket, Republican Donald Trump received 56.74 percent of the counted votes, with Democrat Kamala Harris receiving 41.13 percent in San Juan County.
Across the state of Utah, Republican Donald Trump received 59 percent of the vote with Harris receiving 38 percent.
In contested races in San Juan County, John Curtis was the Republican who gathered the most votes with 3,452 votes for Curtis in his race to represent Utah in the Senate.
Mike Kennedy earned 3,393 votes in his race to represent the Third Congressional District in the U.S. House of
Representatives. Donald Trump earned 3,357 votes in San Juan County in the race for President.
Top Democratic vote earners in San Juan County were Stacey Steele earning 2,636 votes, Davina Smith earning 2,509, and Kamala Harris earning 2,433.
The vast majority of San Juan County voters participated in the elexction by mailing their ballots before the election. There were also a large number of voters who participated in the election by casting ballots on election day.
For the most part, there were few problems on election day. There was an issue with a voting pad in Blanding that was replaced by mid-day.
The voting pad problem resulted in a number of voters who cast provisional ballots after the system mistakenly stated that they had already voted.
Officials from the San Juan County Clerks office, who administer the election, report that the approved provisional ballots will be counted in the election.
In total, 6,025 ballots have been counted, with an additional 262 provisional ballots that have yet to be cured.
In total, it looks like there are about 500 fewer San Juan County voters in 2024 than participated in the 2020 general election.
In 2020, 6,965 San Juan County participated, with 7,790 names on the voting lists.
Officials report that 58.8 percent of ballots were mailed by voters, an additional 18.2 percent of ballots were placed in the drop boxes, and 22.9 percent of voters participated in person on election day.