Utah County Demos suddenly viable

PROVO — No Utah County Democrat has won a seat in the state Legislature since 1994, but a conservative slate of candidates, flush with cash and Republican endorsements, hopes to end the 14-year losing streak on Tuesday.

A bold effort to reshape a weak local Democratic Party began 18 months ago, and the results heading into the election are noteworthy. Utah County Democratic candidates for the Legislature have raised more than $257,000. That's five times more than the party's legislative candidates managed in the last election cycle two years ago.

This year's slate has attracted more than 1,300 donors. Fewer than 100 donated money to Democrats in 2006.

The group of conservative, chiefly LDS, Democrats also has drawn endorsements from notable Republicans such as personal management guru Steven R. Covey, who a year ago hosted a major fundraiser at his northeast Provo home for Mitt Romney, the Pied Piper of Utah Republicans.

For more than a decade at least, most legislative seats in Utah Valley have gone to the winners at the county Republican convention or in a Republican primary.

Voters often haven't even had that much choice. For example, District 62 in northeast Provo has not had a primary race since at least 1960. That means that for nearly half a century, a few dozen delegates at a convention have decided who would represent the entire district in the Legislature.

Election night often has been reduced to a coronation. Two years ago, five Utah County Republicans earned 100 percent of the vote in their legislative districts because they ran unopposed. Two others faced only token opposition from a Constitutionalist and a Libertarian.

When the Democrats have offered opposition in recent years, they've regularly lost in landslides, largely because the electorate hasn't believed they represent the moral positions of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the area's dominant faith.

In May 2007, Brigham Young University professor and national election expert Richard Davis maneuvered liberal local Democrats to the side, angering some, and recruited Republicans in an effort to create a two-party system in the county.

Democrats have asked voters to consider candidates, not parties, on signs and billboards that read, "I think, therefore I will vote the person, not the party."

Local Republicans chafed because those messages and other signs for Utah County Democrats don't include the word Democrat — or even the letter "D." State Republican Party Chairman Stan Lockhart sent an e-mail to Republicans on Friday saying it is election-time trickery for Utah Democrats to present themselves as different from the national Democratic Party.