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SALT LAKE CITY — The Republican primary field to replace Sen. Mitt Romney in 2024 includes several candidates with years of political experience and two who have loaned their campaigns as much as $1 million.
It also includes Josh Randall, an accountant and relative newcomer who's running a shoestring campaign with his wife, Brianna, as his campaign manager. He's even kept his day job with the Trust Lands Administration, using his free time to campaign.
The do-it-yourself campaign is a matter of necessity — Randall isn't independently wealthy enough to loan himself hundreds of thousands of dollars and doesn't have the experience to haul in the same amount of cash from donors — but it also reflects his focus on cutting federal spending and reducing the national debt.
The money in campaigns is "part of the cultural issue" that has led to the current debt, Randall told KSL.com. "I'm not sure how our politicians can go and say, 'Well, I'm going to go spend $1 million, $2 million, $3 million of my money or someone else's money just to go and run for office — which I may or may not win — and then ... I'm going to go to Washington and all of a sudden flip the switch and be a fiscal hawk.'"
Randall said he's putting in the work to meet with party members and voters to stretch his resources as far as they can go. As a father of six children under the age of 10, he said he's no stranger to balancing multiple responsibilities.
"I told my wife before I started that our priorities are going to still be our faith, our family and my job, and then we've got running for Senate," he said. "If we can't keep those priorities right, then we have to drop running for Senate. I feel like we've been able to do that and keep it straight and still run ... we're running pretty hard."
But whether Randall likes it or not, there are only 100 seats in the U.S. Senate, making each one a valuable commodity. Money is critical, especially for political newcomers who face an uphill climb to boost their name recognition.
When asked why he's aiming for the Senate on his first foray into politics, Randall said: "Go big or go home." He added that he believes the Utah Legislature is already on the right track when it comes to fiscal policy, and that Congress would benefit more from his input.
To address the national debt, Randall proposed cutting between 35-40% of funding to federal agencies across the board, which he said would be accomplished by cutting pay to or laying off civilian employees. He estimates that could entail eliminating as many as one million of the federal government's 2.8 million jobs.
"That might sound crazy to some people. It sounds crazier to me — more extreme to me — to continue to spend beyond our means every single year," he said. "It has to be treated a little bit more like the private sector, which, by the way, would receive a huge production boost."
He understands that it may be a hard sell to those federal employees, but said "people will pay for it one way or another."
"I'm absolutely convinced that it is better now to have the pain be in our government ... and reallocate those workers to the private sector than it is to gradually phase it out," he said. "It's kind of the surgery that we need, and it's much better to get the surgery done early than to just bleed to death."
Randall joins several other Republican candidates campaigning for next year, including former House Speaker Brad Wilson, Riverton Mayor Trent Staggs, Roosevelt Mayor Rod Bird Jr. and former congressional staffer Carolyn Phippen. Two additional candidates — Tyrone Jensen and Gabriel Stuart Lobo-Blanco — have filed candidacy declarations with the FEC.
Rep. John Curtis, R-Utah, the longest-serving member of the state's House delegation, said he's reconsidering running for the seat after a political action committee spent nearly $90,000 to run TV spots in Salt Lake City encouraging him to run.
