Challengers upset over Republican fliers

Estimated read time: 2-3 minutes

This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.

Tom Callan reporting\ Utah County Republican challengers blast the state party for sending out a flier listing the names only of incumbents.

A flier sent out for the April 10 fundraiser at Thanksgiving Point says, "Announcing the return of the Fabulous Five." It lists Rep. Ken Sumsion, R-American Fork, Rep. Keith Grover, R-Provo, Rep. Carl Wimmer, R-Herriman, Rep. Chris Herrod,R-Provo, and Rep. Stephen Sandstrom, R-Orem. The GOP challengers are not mentioned.

Lisa Shepherd is challenging incumbent Keith Grover in Provo. "I've gotten some communication from people who would ask me not to be a part of this and to not talk about it. I've also gotten a lot of people who said you have to stand up," Shepherd says.

She says the state party should not take sides before the primary. "My understanding is that it came from the party in trying to get this out in time before there are any challengers."

Jared Sepulveda, who is running against Sumsion in District 56, said voters who look at the mailers could be influenced to vote for the candidates who are mentioned on the ad. "They are just telling you who they want you to vote for," Sepulveda said. "If they want to do this after the primaries are done, that's fine. But not now."

KSL Newsradio left several messages for state party chairman Stan Lockhart, but he did not return the calls.

Lockhart told the Deseret Morning News yesterday the party is offering the challengers a chance to send out another mailer, which the party will pay for as well.

Lockhart said the mailer was supposed to go out before the March 17 candidate filing deadline, but by the time it was sent out, challengers were already on the ballot.

E-mail: tcallan@ksl.com