Carlton Christensen, another incumbent Salt Lake City councilman, easily won his primary and will face Leslie Benns is Salt Lake City Council District 1, which is dominated by the Rose Park neighborhood.

One of the day's big surprises came in West Jordan. There Mayor Bryan Holladay was eliminated in the primary election and will be replaced by one of two former City Council members in November's general election.

Holladay faced four challengers in a hotly contested race, and he fell short of making the top two by fewer than 100 votes. He was defeated by David B. Newton and Brian D. Pitts, both of whom served on the council under former Mayor Donna Evans. The two were on different sides of several controversies surrounding Evans' leadership, with Newton an Evans supporter and Pitts her opponent.

Holladay defeated Evans in 2001.

Incumbents in West Jordan are often vulnerable, and this year there has been discontent among many residents about city business ranging from a recent re-landscaping of City Hall that some called too costly to disagreement over a city policy restricting communication between City Council members and city staff.

Both City Council incumbents on the ballot made it on to the general election, but the difference between the first and the fourth vote-getter was a mere 432 votes. Three candidates were within 40 votes of each other.

In Murray, incumbent Mayor Dan Snarr failed to win over a majority of voters, gaining only 47 percent of the vote while facing three challengers. David Wilde won out among those challengers and will face Snarr in November.

While not gaining a majority, Snarr advanced to the general election with 2,080 votes — 700 more than his closest contender, Wilde. Snarr, who is seeking his third term, blamed a low voter turnout for what he said were less-than-stellar numbers. Roughly 4,300 of 27,000 registered Murray voters cast ballots, or approximately 16 percent.

"If we had had a better turnout, I think we could have been better," Snarr said. "But we're going to work really, really hard and come out with some good information that really pinpoints what I've been doing for the last 7 1/2 years."

Wilde said he would have preferred to get the No. 1 spot in the primary election, but that as far as he's concerned, he is in a "very winnable election."

"I won't take for granted that the votes that went for (Chad) Bennion and (Michael) Romero are going to come to me," Wilde said. "But I'll tell you what, I'm going to work hard to get those votes."

Up north, in Davis County two incumbents appeared to have lost their seats in Davis County, with absentee and provisional ballots still to be counted,