The Wasatch County Clerk-Auditor’s Office on Wednesday finalized the results of the county’s GOP primary election, which took place on June 23.

Rachel Kahler has secured the Republican nomination for Wasatch County Council Seat A in the tightest race of this election. She secured 2,722 votes, or 51%, as opposed to Brett Vance’s 2,584 votes, or 49%. The pair have maintained those percentages of the vote since the preliminary results were released, even as final ballots have been counted.

Kahler said she was initially thrown for a tailspin by the closeness of the preliminary results but that the experience has given her a greater appreciation for just how much every vote counts.

“I’m grateful that we now have a final result, so that I can really move forward and focus on part two. This is a long campaign season, almost a year, and I’m excited to look at next steps, work with Wasatch County GOP leadership and really step forward as the Republican nominee,” she said.

Kahler will go on to face Democratic candidate Patrick Saucier in November’s general election.

Wasatch County Council Seat A is currently occupied by Luke Searle, who is running for House District 59, which serves Wasatch and Summit counties. 

Searle secured the Republican nomination over Jeffrey Pierce and will go on to face Democratic candidate and former Midway Mayor Celeste Johnson in the general election.

Searle won over 3,136 votes, or 58%, of Wasatch County voters. Pierce collected 2,247 votes or 42%.

Pierce secured more Summit County votes than Searle, though, with 522 votes compared to Searle’s 256. The Summit County Clerk’s Office’s results are still preliminary, but factoring them in, Searle and Pierce garnered 55% and 45% of the vote, respectively. Summit County will finalize results on Tuesday.

Wasatch County Emergency Management Director Jeremy Hales is the Republican nominee for sheriff. He secured 3,473 votes, or 67%, while incumbent Jared Rigby secured 1,744, or 33%. Hales will go on to face unaffiliated candidate Paul Moore in November.

The clerk-auditor election is the only one with an outcome that’s officially decided before the general election.

Incumbent Joey Granger and Park City Recorder Michelle Kellogg both ran as Republicans, with no opponents from other parties. Kellogg received 2,804 votes, or 53%, and Granger received 2,477, or 47%.

Granger shared some other statistics about the election with the Wasatch County Council when she presented the results on Wednesday. 

Of the 5,632 ballots received, only 190 were cast in-person.

“I think that means that our voters are pretty confident in the mail-in process. The majority of those were put in drop boxes,” Granger said.

The GOP election saw a 47% turnout from Wasatch County’s active Republican voters. That’s 5,522 votes from 11,725 registered Republican voters, who make up nearly two-thirds of registered voters in the county.

“That’s a pretty good turnout,” Granger said.

The post Wasatch County GOP election results have been finalized appeared first on Park Record.

Republican candidates for Utah House of Representatives District 59, which represents Wasatch and Summit counties, participated in a debate at Wasatch High School on April 1, organized by Dr. Nesya Holmes with the Wasatch Republican Women’s Club.

Although the debate was considered bipartisan, the two Democratic candidates — Deer Valley Resort employee Micah Kagan and former Midway Mayor Celeste Johnson — did not attend. All three Republican candidates — Luke Searle, Jeffrey Pierce and Mark Allen — did.

Allen, also a Deer Valley Resort employee, from Wallsburg, characterized himself as interested in “the Constitution, not the institution.” His top issues were accountability of elected officials and government staff, transparency of their proceedings and conservation. 

He was an advocate for House Bill 397, which was sponsored during the 2026 general legislative session by current House District 59 Rep. Mike Kohler, a Republican. The bill would have required that courts livestream and make recordings available of all court proceedings, with some exceptions. The bill did not pass. Kohler announced earlier this year that he would not seek reelection.

He also led efforts to place Bridal Veil Falls under a conservation easement in 2020.

Searle’s campaign is built on the back of his service on the Wasatch County Council. He will not run for Seat A to campaign for House District 59. 

A business teacher and Turning Point USA club advisor at Wasatch High School, Searle said he is running because Utah is becoming an unaffordable place to raise a family.

He wants to change that by lowering property taxes and making every decision as a state representative with families in mind.

He also hopes to mitigate state control on local planning and zoning, allowing municipalities and counties the opportunity to manage their own growth rather than have it managed for them.

Park City investor Pierce promised that as state representative, he would “never let those North Fields get developed,” which has become a hot-button issue in Wasatch County since the Utah Department of Transportation announced its intention to build a highway corridor in the wetland area in January.

Like Searle, Pierce is interested in lowering property and income taxes. His top issues are reducing government spending and keeping money out of politics. 

Pierce called out Searle for taking donations twice. Searle said his campaign has raised around $13,000 and that he cannot afford to fund it by himself. Meanwhile, Pierce said his campaign will be self-funded through the primary election. 

“We all can’t be millionaires,” Searle said. “I received almost 100 donations from people, but it’s 50 bucks, 100 bucks and a couple of $1,000 donations. … If a person’s bought off for $1,000, I mean, that’s pretty sad.”

Pierce also criticized the libertarian advocacy group Americans for Prosperity’s endorsement of Searle because, in Pierce’s opinion, the organization pushes “business interests” and is “not conservative” because it did not endorse President Donald Trump during the 2024 election.

Meanwhile, Searle characterized himself as the “only conservative” of the candidates running for House District 59.

When the audience was allowed to ask questions of the candidates, an audience member asked Allen, Pierce and Searle how they would represent constituents in Wasatch County over themselves. 

Pierce said the problem is that representatives are representing their donors rather than their constituents or their own values.

“People are getting rich, and their campaigns are getting funding, and we need to change it,” he said. “Property tax, I think, could be solved if this pork were to stop, but the pork is what funds their campaigns.”

Searle promised to do something similar to what the County Council has done: hold listening town halls every six months to allow constituents from across the county to voice their concerns.

“I promise to have these times before and after the legislative session where you can come in here, and we can talk about the issues, and I can listen to you, and I can hear what matters to you and (explain) why I took the votes that I did,” he said. “I’m ultimately accountable to you as a state representative.”

Allen promised that he was running for unselfish reasons, pointing to his participation in conservation efforts as evidence. If elected, he plans to hold office for only one term.

“I’d rather be fly fishing. I’d rather be skiing. I’d rather be doing a lot of things, but I can’t unsee what I’ve seen in Utah,” he said. “I want my Utah back. I want the Utah I grew up with. And the only way for me to do that is to step in and stand out.”

GOP state delegates will nominate one of the three Republican House District 59 candidates during the state convention at Utah Valley University’s UCCU Event Center in Orem on April 25. 

Democratic state delegates will nominate either Celeste Johnson or Micah Kagan during their state convention at Jordan High School in Sandy on the same day.

A primary election will be held on June 23.

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Gary Pugmire has been involved in just about every election since he was 18 and has been a Republican precinct chair in every area he’s lived in for the past three decades. He’s now precinct chair for the Wheeler Park neighborhood in Heber City, a role he’s held for about eight years.

“I feel like lots of people are reluctant to take a leadership role. So by default, I get elected pretty consistently,” he said.

The Wasatch County Republican Party caucus at Wasatch High School on Tuesday garnered about 450 attendees. Though it was one of many such events Pugmire has attended over the years, he has little love for Utah’s caucus system. 

Through the caucus system, local Republican and Democratic parties elect county and state delegates. Delegates represent precincts, or neighborhoods, at the county and state conventions. They vet candidates and vote for who they would like to see represent their political party on the ballot. ​Candidates who do not receive the party nomination can also make it on the ballot through signature-gathering.

The Wasatch County Republican Party has 53 precincts, with 53 state delegates and 304 county delegates elected between those precincts.

Pugmire’s biggest issue with the system is that it primarily attracts people who are “ultra-wanting to be involved,” leaving out “a big swath of the voters,” particularly political moderates.

Despite his issues with the system, Pugmire continues to be involved because he feels it’s the way he can affect most political change.

“People worry about federal (issues) because that’s what’s on their evening news. But they forget to worry about … county issues,” he said. “The only way to be an influencer in that is to become either a county delegate or a vice chair or a chair in a precinct.”

Midway resident Cary Hobbs agreed. Though he no longer serves as a delegate or chair, he still attends the caucus every two years.

“In Utah, the caucus really means a lot because it’s so heavily Republican. Every year, a Democrat might get a chance to win, but probably, it’s pretty tough. So, the best thing you can do is have some influence on which of the Republicans get on the ballot,” he said.

As an example of the caucus’ influence, he recalled being a precinct chairman during the Utah Republican Party convention in 2004, during which the party decided not to nominate incumbent Republican Gov. Olene Walker. Walker left office with an 87% approval rating, according to the Deseret News. 

“I thought she was great,” Hobbs said. “I get to the precinct meeting, and these hardline Republicans in there say, ‘Absolutely not. We need somebody that’s a man that can get in.’” 

Republican Jon Huntsman went on to win the primary election with more than 66% of the vote and was elected governor later that year.

Despite the caucus’ influence in Utah, many attendees of the Wasatch County Republican Party’s event Tuesday weren’t sure how the system worked.

That was true for lifelong Heber City resident Sydney Holmes. 

“I don’t know what a caucus is, still,” she said after entering the building. 

Holmes came to learn more about the political process and meet candidates.

Though she remembered when there were so many farms in Heber City that cows would consistently wander into her family’s yard, she was on the lookout for candidates who “embrace the growth” rather than unsuccessfully trying to “mitigate it.” 

For her, that meant candidates in favor of constructing the Heber Valley bypass, which she hopes will take traffic off of Main Street and increase safety for pedestrians. 

Much like Holmes, 18-year-old Wasatch High School senior Matteo Willis didn’t attend the caucus with an understanding of the system, but simply to become more politically involved.

Willis and several other students volunteered at the event, wearing white t-shirts emblazoned with the word “freedom” in all caps. 

The group represented Wasatch High School’s chapter of Turning Point USA, a conservative political organization whose mission is “to identify, educate, train and organize students to promote the principles of freedom, free markets and limited government,” according to the nonprofit’s website. 

Members of the club were invited to volunteer at the caucus by Luke Searle, a Wasatch County councilor and candidate for Utah House District 59. Searle teaches business marketing at the high school and was asked to be Turning Point USA’s adviser by student members.

“When I was a young conservative in high school, I was grateful for people who just welcomed me in and helped me get through the process. And so I’m trying to do the same thing,” Searle said. 

Willis co-founded the Wasatch High School club with other students after witnessing the fatal shooting of Turning Point USA’s co-founder, Charlie Kirk, at Utah Valley University in September. Now the club has 42 members. 

“I saw everything that went down. After seeing that, definitely showed me there’s some evil on this world. I kind of wanted to help start a club to show some important values from Turning Point and my own ideas,” Willis said. 

Turning Point USA’s alignment with the Christian right was shared by the Wasatch County Republican Party. 

Heber City Mayor Heidi Franco began the caucus with a Christian prayer, and organizers asked attendees to ensure their values aligned with the party’s platform. They read the party’s preamble, which “affirm(s) our belief in God and declare(s) our support for government based upon a moral and spiritual foundation.”

Wasatch County Republican Party acting Chair Patty Sprunt then quoted John Adams, who said, “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” Sprunt also expressed her gratitude for the prayer Franco had given and for religious freedoms.

Attendees were then divided into various rooms by precincts, where they elected precinct chairs and vice chairs and county and state delegates.

Precinct 106, which represents an area in Red Ledges, stayed in the auditorium. The precinct represents some 800 people and is the largest in Wasatch County, with 15 county delegates and two state delegates, as opposed to other precincts’ one. 

Jackson Talley, 19, volunteered to be a county delegate. The teenager has been politically involved since he was 16, including as an intern for Sen. John Curtis’ 2024 campaign. Curtis did not receive the Republican Party nomination but was able to get on the ballot by gathering signatures.

“I think (the caucus system) allows people to get involved that wouldn’t usually be involved,” Talley said. “But at the same time, I think that signatory system also allows candidates that aren’t endorsed by larger groups … to be able to get their name on the ballot. So I would say I like the current system the way it is right now.”

Carol Gallagher volunteered to be a state delegate after serving as an alternate the past two years.

Her biggest issues were mitigating property taxes, levying impact fees on developers, bringing down the density of developments and asking candidates about the Utah Department of Transportation’s Heber Valley bypass.

“I hate to see it go through those fields,” she said. “I would ask that to candidates, people that were running. I’d say, ‘OK, if you’re against the North Fields being used as a freeway, what’s your alternative?’ And people struggle. I think we all do. … I don’t know where it can go at this point.”

Gallagher’s central principles — “smaller government and values based upon faith, family and country” — were shared by many who attended the caucus that night.

Fifteen Republicans are running in the upcoming election.

This year’s election will determine who fills three Wasatch County Council seats and county sheriff, attorney and clerk positions. It will also fill an opening for a representative for the Utah House of Representatives District 59.

Searle and Mark Allen are running for House District 59. 

Brett Vance, Rachel Kahler and Steve Farrell are running for Wasatch County Council at-large Seat A. Erik Rowland is running unopposed for reelection to Seat C. Karl McMillan, Bruce Zollinger and Michael Murphy are running for Seat F. 

One Republican, Jon Woodward, is running for Wasatch County attorney.

The Wasatch County sheriff candidates are all Republicans: incumbent Jared Rigby, Jeremy Hales and Eric Mainord. 

The Wasatch County clerk-auditor race is also between Republicans, incumbent Joey Granger and current Park City Recorder Michelle Kellogg. 

The Republican Party county convention will be held on April 7, during which delegates will vote for party nominees.

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