Former President Donald Trump is scheduled to visit Park City in late August for a fundraiser, another in a string of high-profile political trips to the community during the 2024 White House campaign cycle.
The South Summit regional chair of the Summit County Republican Party, Jerry Heck, said the event is slated for Aug. 29 at the St. Regis Deer Valley. The local Republican Party is not involved in the organizing and he does not anticipate attending, he said.
If he were in attendance, Heck said, he would like to hear Trump address issues like the former president’s plans to put America first, his support for the middle class and his platform plank regarding manufacturing in the country.
“It’s great,” Heck said about the upcoming Trump appearance. “I wish we had a real rally. … It’d be great to have one in Utah.”
He predicted Trump will perform “really well” as he raises funds during the event in Park City.
Heck, meanwhile, said he is disappointed in Republican Gov. Spencer Cox and U.S. Rep. John Curtis, a Republican who is mounting a campaign for the Senate this year.
“They’re getting in on coattails without really earning it,” he said.
Trump won Summit County by a wide margin in a Republican presidential preference poll held in March. He has struggled in Summit County on Election Day, though. Trump lost in Summit County in 2016 and then again as he sought reelection four years later. Summit County is one of the state’s most reliably Democratic counties, with the Park City area attracting large numbers of newcomers in recent decades from Democratic strongholds like California and New York.
Trump would be the latest in a string of high-profile political figures to visit the Park City area – Republicans and Democrats — hoping to tap the wealth of full-time residents and people who own vacation homes.
Vice President Kamala Harris traveled to The Colony for a fundraiser in June, shortly before President Biden ended his own reelection bid. Speaking before she became the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, the vice president told the crowd of the stakes of the election and the contrasts between Biden and Trump.
Biden himself visited the Park City area in August 2023 for a fundraising stop, also held in The Colony. The president during the event, held at a private residence, spoke about his longtime view of the importance of the middle class and talked of his optimism for the nation’s future.
Other notable fundraising stops in the Park City area over the years have included:
• Former President Bill Clinton in 2016 on behalf of the White House bid of his wife, Hillary Clinton.
• Former Sen. Hillary Clinton in 2015 as she prepared to compete for the Democratic presidential nomination the next year.
• President George W. Bush in 2008 to raise funds for Republicans who were campaigning that year.
• Barack Obama in 2007 as he prepared for the Democratic presidential-nominating contests the following year.
• Mitt Romney repeatedly during his presidential bids in 2008 and 2012.