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SALT LAKE CITY — Ben McAdams still leads an extremely tight Utah’s fourth congressional district race that remains too close to call a week after the Nov. 6 election.
McAdams now leads with 121,519 votes, holding an 873-vote (50.18 to 49.82 percent) lead over incumbent Rep. Mia Love after more post-election ballots were released Tuesday and Wednesday.
Love filed a lawsuit against the Salt Lake County clerk’s office on Wednesday to stop vote counting in the county to allow the campaign time to examine the county’s ballots, but the office released new election totals anyway.
A hearing for the lawsuit was slated for Thursday afternoon in 3rd District Court.
It’s been a long wait to see how the race will shake out. In fact, McAdams traveled to Washington for an orientation for new Congress members even though the race hasn't been called yet.
Should the results remain the same, he would have to leave his current position as Salt Lake County Mayor, which oversees all of the incorporated and unincorporated land in the county.
So what is the process in that situation?
McAdams would have to resign his position, Salt Lake County Democratic Party Chairman Q. Dang explained. He estimated that should McAdams win, he’d likely leave his current post sometime shortly before when he’d be sworn in in Washington on Jan. 3.
Once McAdams submits his resignation, the county council would alert the county’s Democratic Party about the vacancy. The party then has a 30-day process to find his replacement.
The party would open up submissions for potential candidates in the first 10 days, Dang said. The following two weeks would be spent allowing candidates to campaign to the central committee members of the party. A special election within the party will be held after that, where a winner would be chosen and their name would be sent to the Salt Lake County Council.
Dang likened the process to a similar process in 2017 when Salt Lake County Sheriff Jim Winder resigned to become Moab’s police chief. The party eventually nominated Rosie Rivera for the position. She went on to win re-election in 2018.
“We’ve done this before,” Dang said. “If people kind of want to see how we did in the past, it’s the same exact process. It’s the same thing. It’s all laid out in our policies and stuff.”
