Many races unwinnable for Utah Democrats

If the success of a political party were measured by how many candidates it fields in a major election, the Utah Democratic Party is back. As strong as ever.

Unfortunately for Utah Democrats, that is not the measure. Winning is.

Still, kudos to Democratic Party leaders and the dozens of candidates that stepped forward this year.

All federal and statewide races have a Democrat.

All but one of the 15 state Senate races have a Democrat.

Of the 75 state House races this year, all but six have a Democrat.

That's much better than 2006, when 19 House districts did not have a Democratic contender.

Republicans should take pride in the fact that they have candidates in every state Senate and House district. But considering that Utah is one of the most red states in the nation, it has become expected of the majority party to have a full slate of candidates — considering that most current offices have a Republican incumbent to begin with.

Democratic Party chairman Wayne Holland promised when he took over in 2005 that he would rebuild the minority party. Using funds provided by the Democratic National Committee, he hired several new full-time employees, including people assigned to rebuild local party affiliates and recruit candidates.

The Utah County Democratic Party has really come through, filling candidate slots in most of the legislative races there.

There hasn't been a Democrat elected to the Legislature from Utah County in more than a decade.

And Democrats across the state are showing more enthusiasm this year — with record turnouts seen in the Feb. 5 presidential primary here.

In fact, there are a lot of Republicans challenging not only incumbent Democrats in legislative races, but challenging their own party incumbents as well.

While state Senate President John Valentine, R-Orem, has no Democratic opponent this year, next door neighbor in the Senate, Majority Leader Curt Bramble, R-Provo, has two Republican opponents and two Democratic opponents. In his last re-election four years ago, Bramble had no GOP opponent and only one Democrat.