In this year’s primary election, registered Republican voters will be asked to choose between four candidates competing to become the party’s nominee for Weber County Commission seat A.
Several things make this particular race notable, including: the number of candidates, who they are, how they got there, and how much campaign cash has already been spent.
The race in a growing county and underscored with some intrigue is also representative of the dynamics of Utah primary politics, where a more-than-decade-old law that creates two routes to the primary ballot still irks Republicans and strong GOP majorities mean the winners of most races are determined long before the general election comes.
Ballots will arrive by mail in early June — about three weeks ahead of the June 23 primary election day.
Who’s running?
Alphabetically by last name, the GOP candidates in the commission A primary are:
James Ebert: Farr West resident who served as a Weber County commissioner from January 2015 to January 2019. He has served as CEO of the Boys & Girls Club of Weber-Davis since 2019.
Katrina Gibson: Wife of former Weber County Commissioner Kerry Gibson who served from January 2011 to January 2018. They own a dairy farm in western Weber County, and Katrina manages a cozy diner called the Korner Fix.
Richard Hyer: Northeast Ogden resident who is finishing his third term on the Ogden City Council where he currently serves as chair. He spent his career as a goldsmith/jeweler, and his hobbies have included beekeeping.
Duane Kearsley: Warren resident (west Weber County) and first-time candidate who manages the Golden Spike Event Center. He loves coaching youth sports and enjoys running ultra marathons.
How did they get here?
Hyer and Kearsley survived three rounds of delegate voting during Weber’s April 11 GOP Convention, with Kearsley as top vote-getter receiving 285 votes and Hyer next in line with 202. Neither cleared the 60% threshold needed to nail the party’s nomination.
Ebert and Gibson, eliminated in the first and second rounds of delegate voting, had collected signatures to secure spots on June’s ballot, regardless of the convention’s outcome.
The roots of this two-fold path to the primary date back to 2010 when it became apparent that GOP delegates differed from the broader electorate in how they valued candidates. Delegates ousted moderate incumbent Sen. Bob Bennett that year in favor of the deeply conservative Mike Lee, who still holds the seat.
At that time, Utah’s dismal voter participation gave rise to the Count My Vote movement and a 2013 ballot initiative aimed at replacing the convention/caucus system with direct primaries.
In response, state lawmakers passed compromise legislation in 2014 to preserve the caucus/convention system while establishing the signature-gathering alternative to also get on the primary ballot.
While voter turnout improved, the divide between delegate-preferred candidates and those who gather signatures endures, underscoring the difference between the hard-wired Republican party core (which still opposes the law) and the broader electorate.
Case in point — at the 2024 state GOP convention, delegates booed Gov. Spencer Cox and gave him only 32.5% of their votes compared to Rep. Phil Lyman’s 67.5%. But Cox — who gathered signatures — easily sailed to victory when more moderate primary voters weighed in.
But over the past decade, signature-gathering companies emerged as a lucrative cottage industry, making campaign cash a vital resource for those who aim to win primaries and move on to November.
What next?
This November, the Republican winner for seat A faces off against Democrat Alvin Thurgood and Forward Party of Utah candidate Gary New.
Weber County Commission seat B will also be on the ballot, with incumbent Sharon Bolos — a former West Haven mayor — seeking reelection.
Delegates chose Plain City Mayor Jon Beesley at April’s GOP convention with 281 votes (62%) compared to 115 for Bolos (26%). Bolos gathered signatures to secure her spot in the primary.
No other political parties had candidates file for seat B, so the winner in the Republican primary race will assume the post in January.
This article was originally published by Utah News Dispatch and edited for length. Read the entire story here.
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