Embedded Files
UT-01 Is Now D+12 — Here’s What That Actually Means
UT-01 Is Now D+12 — Here’s What That Actually Means
Published by Sean Champagne
Published: March 14, 2026
Last Updated: April 6, 2026
Estimated Read Time: 12 minutes
Tags: UT-01, Utah Redistricting, Salt Lake County, Cook PVI, Utah Democrats, 2026 Elections
UT-01 being D+12 is not a cute statistic for political obsessives. It is the entire story.
It means Utah Republicans finally lost the one battle they had been winning for years: the map. Cook now rates the new UT-01 at D+12 and describes it as the first time since 2000 that Salt Lake City “falls neatly into its own compact district.” That is a huge change in a state where Republicans spent years cracking Salt Lake County into four congressional districts so Democrats could win none of them.
A D+12 district is not a swing seat. It is not “competitive.” It is not “maybe if the Democrat has a good night.” It means that, measured against the nation, the district now votes about twelve points more Democratic than the country as a whole, using the last two presidential elections in the Cook framework. In practical terms, Republicans are no longer trying to hold this seat because it is naturally theirs. They are trying to survive the fact that it isn’t.
The cleanest way to understand the new district is to look backward. Under the new UT-01 lines, the district would have voted Romney 54–46 in 2012, Clinton 49–28 in 2016 in a three-way environment with a huge third-party share, Biden 60–36 in 2020, and Harris 60–37 in 2024. That is not just a leftward move. That is a full ideological realignment of the district’s presidential behavior across four cycles. In 2012 it still looked like old Utah. By 2020 and 2024, it looked like a durable Democratic seat.
That trend matters because it shows this district is not blue by technicality. It is blue because Salt Lake County, when not artificially diluted, behaves like a modern metro district: younger, more urban, more college-and-service economy driven, and more Democratic than the state around it. The new UT-01 is based in and covers most of Salt Lake County, including Salt Lake City, West Valley City, Millcreek, Cottonwood Heights, and Murray; KSL described it as anchored in northern Salt Lake County, while broader district descriptions make clear it is essentially Salt Lake County-centered.
And the district looks like a real metro seat demographically too. Census-based profiles put it at roughly 871,848 people, with a median age of 32.4, a median household income around $92,358, and a Hispanic population around 13.8%. That is not some sprawling rural Utah district with a little Salt Lake sprinkled in. It is a compact, urbanized, economically active district whose politics finally match its population center.
That is why D+12 matters. It means three things at once.
First, it means the general election is basically over before it starts. Democrats are fighting over the nomination because whoever wins the Democratic primary is the overwhelming favorite in November. Cook has the seat as Solid Democratic, and even Utah coverage that bends over backward to be polite about Republican prospects still describes the district as likely to elect a Democrat.
Second, it means the Republican mapmaking project failed. The old map did exactly what it was designed to do: split Salt Lake County into four pieces and convert a Democratic metro into four Republican House seats. Judge Dianna Gibson rejected the Legislature’s replacement map as an “extreme partisan outlier,” and the court-imposed district is the direct opposite of that old design logic. Instead of slicing up Salt Lake County, it consolidates it. Instead of manufacturing four GOP seats, it finally produces one seat that reflects Salt Lake County as it actually votes.
Third, it means UT-01 is now a nationally recognizable type of district. It is not uniquely Utah anymore. It now resembles the kind of metro-centered Democratic district you see in other red or purple states: the big population center, the economic engine, the younger and more pluralistic part of the state, finally allowed to vote as itself.
The closest analogues I see across the country are these:
10. Nebraska’s 2nd District — Omaha, Nebraska. This is the Omaha-based district, historically the one part of Nebraska that can break from the rest of the state, and it is represented by Don Bacon for now. It is less blue than the new UT-01, but the structural resemblance is obvious: one metropolitan district inside a much redder state, with its own political culture and national relevance.
9. Kansas’s 3rd District — Johnson County / Kansas City suburbs, Kansas. Represented by Sharice Davids, KS-03 is the classic “metro exception” in a state that is otherwise much redder. It is more suburban than UT-01 and less urban-core, but the political logic is similar: affluent and educated metro geography breaking from statewide Republican gravity.
8. Ohio’s 1st District — Cincinnati, Ohio. Represented by Greg Landsman, OH-01 is based in Cincinnati and most of its inner suburbs. Like the new UT-01, it is a district where an urban core plus its immediate orbit produces a seat that behaves differently from the broader state story.
7. Kentucky’s 3rd District — Louisville, Kentucky. Represented by Morgan McGarvey, KY-03 is another example of one dominant metro district inside a state that is otherwise not giving Democrats much. Louisville’s district is bluer and more consolidated than old UT-01 ever was, but as a model for “the state’s liberal bastion finally allowed to exist as a district,” it tracks.
6. Missouri’s 1st District — St. Louis, Missouri. Represented by Wesley Bell, MO-01 is more Democratic than the new UT-01, but it belongs in the comparison because it shows what happens when a metro core anchors its own district in a redder state. The scale is different; the logic is the same.
5. Texas’s 32nd District — North Dallas, Texas. Represented by Julie Johnson, TX-32 is a metropolitan, educated district whose politics are much bluer than the caricature of its state. It is wealthier and more suburban than UT-01, but if you are looking for a district built from a major metro’s professional class and post-Republican drift, this is one of the cleanest comparisons.
4. Nevada’s 3rd District — southern Las Vegas / Clark County suburbs, Nevada. Represented by Susie Lee, NV-03 is not as compactly urban as the new UT-01, but it is another Western district built around the economic and demographic logic of a growing metro area rather than the state’s old political mythology.
3. Arizona’s 4th District — Phoenix, Arizona. Represented by Greg Stanton, AZ-04 is a Phoenix-based Democratic district whose central-city and inner-metro composition makes it feel more like the new UT-01 than many people would guess. Like Salt Lake County, it reflects the politics of an urban core that is more Democratic, more service-economy, and more institutionally dense than the rest of the state.
2. New Mexico’s 1st District — Albuquerque, New Mexico. Represented by Melanie Stansbury, NM-01 may be the cleanest geographic analogue. It includes most of Albuquerque and its suburbs and functions as the state’s principal urban district. It is the kind of seat you get when the main city is allowed to anchor a district instead of being broken apart.
1. Nevada’s 1st District — Las Vegas, Nevada. Represented by Dina Titus, NV-01 is probably the single closest political analogue. It is a compact urban district centered on the state’s liberal bastion, with tourism-and-service-economy DNA, significant diversity, and a politics that diverge sharply from the broader state stereotype. The new UT-01 is basically Utah’s version of finally getting a district like that.
The point of that comparison is not that UT-01 is suddenly Brooklyn. It is that the district now belongs to a recognizable category of House seats: the dominant metropolitan district in a state whose statewide branding understates how Democratic its main urban center has become.
That is also why the primary matters so much. A D+12 seat is not asking Utah Democrats whether they can win. It is asking them what kind of district they believe this is. Do they want someone more progressive, more Salt Lake, more ideological, more movement-oriented? Or do they want someone more moderate, more McAdams-style, more institution-first? That is now the real election. The map already settled the first argument.
So when people hear “D+12” and shrug, they are missing the point. In Utah, D+12 is not just a number. It is the public receipt for a failed gerrymander, the political acknowledgment that Salt Lake County cannot be permanently neutralized, and the clearest sign in years that Utah’s future is not going to look like its past.
Recommended Articles
Recommended Articles
Page updated
Google Sites
Report abuse