When did a Democrat last win a Utah governor’s race?

a) 1992

b) 1984

c) 1980

d) 1976

Answer: c) Democrat Scott M. Matheson was elected to a second term as governor in 1980, defeating Republican Bob Wright by 55 percent to 44 percent. Matheson, who had won his first term by defeating Republican Vernon B. Romney by 52 percent to 46 percent in 1976, retired from public office. He died of cancer in 1990 at the age of 61.

At the time of Matheson’s political rise, the Democratic Party was a competitive factor in Utah, even though the largely Mormon population has long exhibited strongly conservative leanings. For example, Democrats held the governor’s office for 48 of the 68 years between Simon Bamberger’s January 1917 swearing-in as the state’s first Democratic governor and Matheson’s voluntary retirement from office in January 1985. But most of those victories came when the national Democratic Party had a sizable conservative wing that was based mainly in the South but also had many adherents in the Mountain West states.

The growing identification in more recent years of the Democrats as a more liberal party nationally has sealed an overwhelming dominance for the Republicans in state politics. Utah has not gone Democratic for president since Lyndon B. Johnson pulled it off in 1964; more than 70 percent of Utah voters went for Republicans Ronald Reagan in 1980 and 1984 and George W. Bush in 2004. Republicans have won 12 consecutive races for U.S. Senate in Utah, dating to 1974, with six-term incumbent Orrin G. Hatch and three-termer Robert F. Bennett currently holding the seats.

Norman H. Bangerter began the Republicans’ current winning streak for governor with victories in 1984 and 1988. Michael O. Leavitt was elected to the office in 1992, 1996 and 2000, though he stepped down in 2003 to become Bush’s administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency and shifted in 2005 to his current position as secretary of Health and Human Services.

Jon Huntsman Jr. , nominated by Utah Republicans over interim GOP Gov. Olene S. Walker, easily won the 2004 race for governor over Scott M. Matheson Jr., a son of the late governor and brother of the state’s only current Democratic member of Congress, 2nd District Rep. Jim Matheson . Huntsman is strongly favored to win re-election this year over Democrat Bob Springmeyer, the president of an economic and management consulting firm. Though both candidates nailed down their nominations at state party conventions in May, primaries for other offices in Utah will be held June 24.