Utah
In Utah gubernatorial debate, expected fireworks fizzle
Moderation prevailed in Tuesday’s gubernatorial Republican primary debate as Utah Gov. Spencer Cox and state Rep. Phil Lyman, R-Blanding, centered their rhetoric around policy — a departure from Cox’s rowdy reception at state convention and Lyman’s aggressive online campaign messaging.
During the hour-long debate, which Cox cheerfully called “boring,” the first-term governor listed what he considers his legislative achievements, identified his biggest regret and noted the absence of fiery rhetoric coming from his challenger.
“Campaigns bring out the worst in people. We’ve certainly seen that with my opponent’s campaign,” Cox said following the debate hosted by the Utah Debate Commission.
The governor, who has championed “Disagree Better” as chairman of the National Governor’s Association, said he has tried to run a positive campaign this year like he did four years ago.
“It’s so much easier to lie and tear your opponent down,” Cox said. “I’m sad that my opponent has done it — he didn’t do it tonight, he didn’t do it to my face, but he apparently is willing to say and do anything to tear down and get elected.”
Lyman, who has represented southeastern Utah for six years in the state legislature, said the event’s format made the debate more “tame from what would probably be more in my comfort zone.”
Lyman has accused Cox of failing to take a bolder stand on issues like transgenderism, illegal migration and centralizing authority to state government on local issues.
“We see things very differently,” Lyman said following the debate, which was moderated by KUER assistant news director Caroline Ballard. “I’m a bottom-up kind of power dynamic person. Cox is very much a top-down power dynamic person. I think the comparisons is stark.”
Lyman defeated Cox 67.5% to 32.5% in the April GOP convention among 4,000 delegates, many of whom greeted Cox with boos before making him the first signature-gathering incumbent not to meet the party’s 40% threshold at convention since a signature route was established 10 years ago, according to former GOP party chairman Spencer Stokes.
Cox, who is running for his second term in office, is among the most popular governors in the nation. A recent Deseret News-Hinckley Institute of Politics poll found Cox with 62% support among registered Republican voters and Lyman with 25% ahead of the June 25 primary election.
Where do Cox and Lyman stand on housing and immigration?
The governor, who previously served as lieutenant governor under Gary Herbert for seven years, touted tax cuts, abortion restrictions, and investments in public education and school choice as highlights from his first four years. But it is the issue of housing affordability that Cox said carried both his biggest win and regret.
After three years of passing dozens of bills meant to increase the supply of starter homes in Utah, “none of them really made a dent,” Cox lamented. But he said he hopes recent legislative wins will reverse that pattern.
“This is the single most important issue in our state,” Cox said at the top of the debate. “This past session, we worked tirelessly with legislators to pass the most comprehensive housing reform in the United States.”
This year, Cox’s administration led out on a package of regulatory reforms to make it easier for homebuilders and municipalities to construct smaller, cheaper single-family homes, including a bill that would give discount loans to lending institutions that backed affordable housing projects.
Lyman said these policy goals were evidence of Cox’s big government tendencies.
“This is the comforting method we like to tell ourselves, that the government is going to fix this problem,” Lyman said.
Lyman said the best thing the state can do is get out of the way. It is regulations coming out of Salt Lake City that have created incentives for developers to stay away from affordable housing projects, Lyman said. “And throwing money at it is not going to fix the problem.”
Lyman levied this same criticism at the current administration’s approach to water management, attracting out-of-state business and subsidizing expensive sports stadiums. The two candidates voiced their agreement on Utah Fits All scholarships, federal overreach on public lands and abortion being a state issue.
But Lyman said he would do more to address illegal immigration in the state then Utah’s current executive.
“Our policies make us a magnet for illegal immigration, you can see by the numbers,” Lyman said. “And not only that, our policies make us a magnet for non-citizens with criminal intent because of the way that we treat the retention of illegals. We’ve got to take more aggressive stance.”
Lyman said he would flout Biden administration rules that make it difficult to detain migrants in local jails and called on Immigration and Customs Enforcement to increase deportations.
Cox placed the blame for increased immigration levels on Biden policies that have made it so that “every state is a border state.”
What is Utah’s brand?
Despite the “Disagree Better” tone of the debate, the candidates diverged on the need for “aggressive rhetoric” in achieving policy successes.
“I’m very proud to be a conservative Utahn,” Cox said. “But I also believe the way we do things matter. … Our state gets judged by the way that I conduct myself.”
A commitment to treating political opponents with “dignity and respect” is key to Utah’s “brand,” which also includes leading the country in the strength of its economy and communities, Cox said.
But elevating civility above all else ignores the threats Utah faces from “external forces who are not using fair tactics to try to take away what belongs to us,” Lyman said.
“They’re trying to lock up our energy. They’re trying to lock up our land. Trying to shut down or industries. They sue our counties. They go after our people. They raid the homes of our people. They have hurt people’s lives,” Lyman said. “I’m not against polite words, but there’s a point where we have to use aggressive rhetoric.”
EUREKA, Utah (KUTV) — Firefighters protected threatened homes in Eureka as the Iron Fire burned overnight, reporting that no structures were lost.
Officials with the Santaquin City Fire Department said firefighters focused their Saturday night efforts on protecting property from the wildfire after it spread over thousands of acres in Juab County. They released an update at 1:30 a.m. Sunday, saying no structures had been lost during the first part of the night.
“We can all let out a cautious sigh of relief for now. Because of the fire conditions and intensity of this fire, resources were focused mainly on structure protection. Those excellent efforts were successful in protecting the homes in Eureka,” fire officials said.
MORE | Iron Fire:
However, the noted that while the structures survived the night, the fire is still burning and 0% contained.
The human-caused fire was discovered Friday just west of Eureka, on the border of Juab, Tooele and Utah Counties. Since then, it has grown to over 13,000 acres, prompting evacuations for the Town of Eureka and the ranches nearby.
Officials plan to brief the public at 8:30 a.m. on all new developments.
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Helicopters and planes were seen dumping water on the fire and flying low over the campus Saturday evening.
(Francisco Kjolseth | The Salt Lake Tribune) A fire breaks out above the University of Utah on Saturday, June 20, 2026.
Utah has spent the past year fighting measles outbreaks — a grim milestone that could affect whether the United States can keep its measles-free designation.
More than 680 people have gotten sick since the state’s first outbreak began on June 20, 2025.
Unlike measles outbreaks in Texas, South Carolina and Arizona, the spread in Utah has been tough to contain to one region — infecting undervaccinated communities in nearly every county.
READ MORE: How health sleuths are watching for threats like measles during the World Cup
Measles popped up in healthcare settings, big-box stores and restaurants, and youth sporting events. In February, an exposure at a state high school wrestling championship sparked at least 46 cases among attendees.
Measles is one of the most contagious diseases known to medicine. It causes a tell-tale rash, high fevers, strong cough, ear infections and diarrhea.
While most recover, some — including young babies, pregnant people and those with weak immune systems — are at higher risk of developing dangerous complications like pneumonia, brain swelling, blindness or even dying. Even healthy people can develop issues years down the road, including a rare but fatal degenerative brain disease that manifests about a decade after infection.
The measles vaccine is safe and 97% protective after two doses.
READ MORE: South Carolina’s measles outbreak is over after sickening nearly 1,000 people
Though Utah’s spread has slowed in recent weeks, state epidemiologist Leisha Nolen sees little opportunity to rest. She’s worried the start of school and arrival of colder weather in the fall will cause measles to surge again.
“It’s still here, it’s still transmitting,” she said. “We just need those few cases to hit the wrong community and it could flare up really big again.”
Utah sees the impacts of dropping vaccination rates
The worst spread has been in the southwestern part of the state, where 265 people have fallen ill with the vaccine-preventable disease since last summer. Overall, measles infections hit 22 of the state’s 29 counties.
READ MORE: Babies too young for MMR vaccine become ‘sitting ducks’ in measles outbreaks
In the state’s rural northeast, the conditions were also ripe for measles to spread. Daggett, Duchesne and Uintah counties — collectively dubbed the “tricounty” health region — has seen the second-largest decline in childhood vaccination rates in the state.
More than 16% of the region’s kindergarteners were missing their measles vaccines in the last school year, according to state data. Statewide, 12.8% were missing their vaccine, putting the state far short of the 95% vaccination rate needed to prevent measles outbreaks.
The TriCounty Health Department logged 74 cases of measles this spring, after people who got sick at the youth wrestling tournament spread the virus in school and later within their households.
The frontier region had seen a rise in vaccine hesitancy for some time, said Sydnee Lyons, the health department’s public information officer.
Despite the large number of cases, local and state health officials consider TriCounty’s measles response a success.
Health officials focused efforts on mitigating the inevitable spread. Unvaccinated students were excluded from in-person school and people who were sick were told to isolate themselves. And their appeal to care for one’s neighbors led to more people coming in to get vaccinated, officials said.
READ MORE: Dr. Mehmet Oz urges public to take the measles vaccine as U.S. cases rise
TriCounty’s infectious disease specialist Cyndie Mattinson recalled a parent who told a school nurse she didn’t want to talk to the health department because “she was worried that we would be angry with her and be judgmental because her children were unvaccinated.”
The nurse vouched for the health department staff, and told the mom to let her know if she felt judged. Mattinson ultimately had a great conversation with the mother.
“The perceptions were changed that we weren’t out there to police, we were there to be a help and a resource to the community,” Mattinson said.
Health experts will meet to decide on U.S. measles status
Utah’s lengthy battle with measles will likely affect whether the U.S. can keep its measles-free designation. Public health officials consider measles to be eliminated from a country when it shows it stopped continuous spread within local communities for at least a year.
The national measles case count was 2,104 as of June 18, nearly surpassing last year’s record total.
READ MORE: A parent’s guide to preventing measles infection and what to look for
Utah has fought measles for a year, but it’s not clear if the earliest clusters are connected with the major outbreak on the Utah-Arizona state line, which was detected in August, Nolen said.
But since then, most of the state’s measles cases have come from within Utah, not from other parts of the country.
International health experts will gather in November to determine if the U.S. and Mexico have lost their measles elimination status. Canada lost its status last year after ongoing outbreaks.
In Utah, doctors continue to reassure scared patients and lobby for better public health policy.
Dr. Ellie Brownstein, president-elect of the state chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics and a pediatrician in Salt Lake City, spent the height of the outbreak opposing a bill that would have made school vaccine waivers easier to get. It failed, but she says there hasn’t been a clear cultural reckoning over measles’ resurgence.
“I don’t know that we get it to end,” Brownstein said. “I don’t know that we’re going to get this genie back in the box because there’s enough people out there to spread it.”
The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
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