The 2024 United States presidential election in Utah took place on Tuesday, November 5, 2024, as part of the 2024 United States presidential election in which all 50 states plus the District of Columbia participated. Utah voters chose electors to represent them in the Electoral College via a popular vote. The state of Utah has six electoral votes in the Electoral College, following reapportionment due to the 2020 United States census in which the state neither gained nor lost a seat. Prior to the election, all major news organizations once again considered Utah a state Trump would win, or a red state.
Republican Donald Trump carried Utah by 21.6%, an improvement over his past two statewide victories. Trump's popular vote percentage increased by 1.25% compared to the previous presidential election. Although Trump improved his margin in all 50 states, Utah had the second-smallest swing to the right after Washington state.
Primary elections
Democratic primary
The Utah Democratic primary was held on Super Tuesday, March 5, 2024. Incumbent president Joe Biden easily won the state, facing minor opposition from activist Marianne Williamson and Congressman Dean Phillips.
Republican primary
The Utah Republican caucuses were held on Super Tuesday, March 5, 2024. Former president Donald Trump defeated former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley in one of his weakest performances of the greater Republican primaries. The state GOP returned to organizing a caucus after its use of the primary system in 2020, which significantly lowered turnout.
General election
Candidate ballot access
As of August 2024, the following candidates have been designated as "Election Candidates":
- Kamala Harris / Tim Walz, Democratic
- Claudia De la Cruz / Karina Garcia, unaffiliated
- Lucifer "Justin Case" Everylove, unaffiliated
- Cornel West / Melina Abdullah, unaffiliated
- Donald Trump / JD Vance, Republican
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. lawsuit
On December 5, 2023, independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. filed a lawsuit against lieutenant governor Deidre Henderson and state elections director Ryan Cowley, arguing that the state's requirement for unaffiliated candidates to attain 1,000 verified signatures before the January 8 deadline is unconstitutional and that it forces Kennedy's campaign to hire professional petition circulators. In the 2020 election, the filing deadline was August 17, and was moved up in a bill passed by the Utah State Legislature in February 2022. Campaign lawyer Paul Rossi argued that the deadline was made "to block any third-party candidates from appearing on Utah's ballot," showing "an absolute contempt for the Constitution." A court filing was made by state attorney general Sean Reyes on December 7, stating that Henderson and Cowley have agreed to not enforce the deadline until March 5, 2024, per request of senior judge David Nuffer. Kennedy later qualified to appear on the Utah ballot on December 28, 2023, marking the first state to award him official ballot access. Kennedy would later withdraw from the ballot in Utah after the suspension of his campaign and endorse Donald Trump for president.
Polling
Donald Trump vs. Kamala Harris
Donald Trump vs. Kamala Harris vs. Cornel West vs. Jill Stein vs. Chase Oliver
Results
By congressional district
Trump won all four congressional districts.
Analysis
A Mountain West state, Utah has not been won by a Democratic presidential candidate since Lyndon B. Johnson did in his 1964 landslide and is a strongly red state, a trait vastly owed to the state's conservative Mormon base. While the state has voted considerably less Republican than before 2016, Utah remains a GOP stronghold at both the federal and state levels. Utah stayed strongly red in other races, with Republican John Curtis winning by 31% in the concurrent 2024 U.S. Senate election in Utah, greatly outperforming Trump.
While Trump won the state handily, Utah had the second-smallest shift to the right in the nation in 2024 after Washington state. Trump improved his margin by just over 1%, compared to the national rightward swing of 6%. Despite Trump's improved margin from 2020, Utah was the only state where Harris won a higher percentage of the vote than Biden in 2020, and it was the highest percentage of the vote won by a Democrat in Utah since Johnson's 1964 victory. Utah was also one of only six states where Harris received more raw votes than Biden in 2020.
Democrat Kamala Harris won the same three counties that Joe Biden did in 2020: Salt Lake, home to the state capital and largest city Salt Lake City; Summit, home to a handful of ski resorts and SLC suburbs; and Grand, home to Moab and nearby Arches National Park. 17 out of Utah's 29 counties also shifted to Harris compared to 2020.
Nationwide trends
According to an analysis by The Economist, this may have been because of a realignment of college-educated and native-born voters to Democrats, while non-college and foreign-born voters shifted to Republicans. This played out nationally, with Harris gaining among White women with college degrees and Black women, while Trump gained among Whites without college degrees and Hispanic voters.
Utah, one of the most highly-educated states with relatively few foreign-born residents, did not shift significantly rightward. For example, Harris won over 30% of the vote in Cache County, home to Utah State University, the highest since 1964.