The two camps watched election results six miles apart, with Cannon backers gathered in a hot, stuffy room on the third floor of the Historic County Courthouse in Provo and Chaffetz supporters just down University Avenue and I-15 at the Camelot Village Clubhouse behind the Springville Wal-Mart.

The clubhouse was electric from the moment Chaffetz thanked his campaign staff at 8 p.m. By 9:30, early returns from 21 percent of the precincts had Chaffetz leading by 16 percentage points, 58 to 42 and the contrast between the two groups grew starker, one buoyed by excitement and the other increasingly somber.

The organization built by Chaffetz and Scott overcame a large gap in campaign cash that grew in the final days before the vote. Cannon's fundraising machine raked in $86,000 in large donations over the last dozen days, according the Federal Elections Commission Web site. Over the same time period, Chaffetz gathered just $6,300.

The new cash put Cannon at nearly $740,000 for the two-year election cycle, with Chaffetz at just more than $170,000.

Chaffetz warmly embraced the financial gap, attacking Cannon for running his campaign in debt and managing his own without a single paid staffer and without providing food for events.

"When we win tonight," Scott told fellow Chaffetz backers before results began to roll in, "everybody will think some genius was behind this campaign, but it wasn't me and it wasn't you, it was all of us."

Chaffetz will face Democrat Bennion Spencer in November. He will kick off the race Saturday with a party at his Alpine home at 7 p.m.

Regardless of who wins the November election for Utah's 3rd Congressional District, Utah will have a freshman lawmaker replacing Cannon and all the seniority he's accrued over six terms.

With Democrats in control, Cannon is the top Republican on the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Commercial and Administrative Law — a panel where he previously served as chairman when the Republicans held the majority.

That panel handles bankruptcy law, interstate compacts and state taxes that affect interstate commerce, among other issues. Cannon is also on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, which handles numerous congressional investigations.

Cannon is also a member of the House Natural Resources Committee, where he serves on the National Parks, Forests, and Public Lands Subcommittee, a key spot for a Utah lawmaker because there is so much public land in the state. Rep. Rob Bishop, R-Utah, also sits on the panel.

Although being in the majority does have its privileges, having committee and legislative experience — regardless of who controls the House — also has its perks and will be something a freshman lawmaker will have to learn.

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Contributing: Suzanne Struglinski

E-mail: twalch@desnews.com