SALT LAKE CITY — Utah Reps. Celeste Maloy and Mike Kennedy made their reelection bids official this week, announcing they will run for the new 3rd District and 4th District, respectively, under the state’s newly established congressional map.

The plans were first reported by the Deseret News after weeks of discussion among the Utah delegation about how to approach the November elections under the new boundaries. Rep. Blake Moore, R-Utah, will file in the new 2nd District, where he’s already begun gathering signatures.

“The conversations all along have been: What’s the best thing we can do to stand up for Utah, to stand up for representative government, to make sure that what’s happening is constitutional,” Maloy told the Deseret News in an interview. “But now that we’re out of options — we have to file to run next week — I’m going to run in the district that I’ve spent my adult life living in.”

The decisions come after Rep. Burgess Owens announced on Wednesday that he would not seek reelection, paving the way for Maloy and Kennedy to each choose one of the two remaining districts and avoid a messy incumbent-on-incumbent primary.

The new map reduced Republicans’ stronghold of four House seats down to three with one Democratic seat, sending the delegation into a scramble about who should run where in the new political landscape.

The redrawn boundaries especially complicated Maloy’s and Kennedy’s decisions as their two districts shifted significantly. Under the new lines, the pair both live in the new 3rd District.

But with Owens’ retirement leaving the new 4th District open, it gives room for Kennedy to run there, which leans Republican.

Kennedy to run in Utah’s 4th District

Kennedy highlighted his work in and representation of parts of the 4th District in his official announcement on Thursday.

“I’ve spent more than twenty years practicing medicine in communities throughout the Fourth District and ten years serving many of these communities in the Utah State Legislature,” Kennedy said. “I know these communities, I share their values, and I’m ready to keep fighting for Utah families in Congress.”

Kennedy and Maloy both praised Owens as he gets ready to exit Congress.

“(Owens) just did the ultimate team-player move, and people here don’t do that,” Maloy said. “I hate that this is a choice that he had to make this year, that he was forced to decide that. I have nothing but love and respect for him and how he makes his choices. … He does what’s best for the team every time, and I think he’s proving that with this decision as well.”

Kennedy said it was an “honor” to serve with Owens in Congress, adding he was “grateful for his service and his friendship.”

The reelection decisions bring an end to the monthslong game of musical chairs that garnered national attention as Democrats were given a rare pickup opportunity in the red state of Utah and the four GOP incumbents were squeezed into three seats.

Owens was long rumored to be considering a departure from public office at the end of 2026, but the Utah delegation kept its cards close to its chest until the new Utah district was solidified.

The delegation has engaged in talks with one another for months on how to proceed, with several of the incumbents telling the Deseret News that those conversations centered around what would be the best fit for the constituents in the new districts.

Still, Utah Republicans did not go down without a fight. Owens was one of two Republicans in the delegation, along with Maloy, to ask the federal courts to block the new Utah map from taking effect because it was selected by a Utah judge, not the legislature, but that request was denied.

Even with the cleared field, Maloy and Kennedy could still face primary challengers from elsewhere in the state. Republican candidates have said they will file in both the 3rd District, David Harris and Phil Lyman, and the 4th District, Stone Fonua.

Two Republican candidates have declared bids in the heavily Democratic 1st District in Salt Lake County: Riley Owen and Dave Robinson.

Candidate filings for federal races open next week and will be available from March 9-13. Primary elections will be held on June 23.

Maloy is gathering signatures to qualify for the ballot, she told the Deseret News. Since making her reelection news public, Maloy has gotten several calls from constituents back home to volunteer for signature-gathering efforts.

Long-term drought played a role in the lake’s decline, but about 75% of the problem was human-caused, according to research published in 2022: People had simply been taking too much lake water for decades.

State officials got serious about intervention in 2022. Lawmakers created a $40 million water trust to boost water quality and quantity. They changed Utah water law to designate it a “beneficial use” for farmers to let their allotment flow to the lake, incentivizing donations and water transfers. (Before the change, unused water rights could be lost.)

State officials also raised a berm along a causeway separating the north and south arms of the lake to give them control over the flow of water and salt between the two. Then, fortuitously, twice as much snow fell in the mountains that winter as usual.

Together, those two factors “basically saved the lake” by lowering its salinity, said Kevin Perry, a University of Utah atmospheric scientist who researches the Great Salt Lake and its toxic dust.

“They filled up and diluted all the salt in the southern part of the lake with that huge snowpack,” he said.

Species returned.

“The flies this year were just robust,” Baxter said.

It was enough to avert crisis — at least temporarily.

“We have avoided that environmental nuclear bomb,” said Joel Ferry, director of the Utah Department of Natural Resources. “We have put the red button away.”

But the water levels have not returned to health, and this year’s dismal snowpack could renew the problems.