WASHINGTON, D.C. – Utah Gov. Spencer Cox says his state’s “unique” qualities helped it come in at the top spot on U.S. News & World Report’s “Best States” survey for the second year in a row.

Utah repeated as the No. 1 state in America in U.S. News & World Report’s Best States rankings for 2024, thanks in part to its consistency.

“The American Dream is alive and well,” Cox said in response to the report at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Institute, where he also spotlighted his “Disagree Better” initiative encouraging bipartisanship among the nation’s governors.

“One of the things that makes Utah special is that we lead the nation in upward mobility and social capital, connectedness, that we lead the nation every year in service and charitable giving, and that we don’t rely on government to solve all of our problems,” Cox told Fox News Digital. “I think that the conservative policies that we’ve championed have made us not just the best economy in the country, but also, you know, we’re No. 2 in education.” 

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The U.S. News project analyzed more than 70 metrics across eight categories, including fiscal stability, health care, infrastructure and crime and corrections. Utah performed the best in education (No. 2), economy (No. 3) and infrastructure (No. 3). The Beehive State also moved up year over year in several categories, including crime and corrections (+6) and opportunity (+2). 

Natural environment was the only category where Utah – known for its geographical diversity, national parks and skiing and snowboarding resorts – finished in the bottom half of the list, at No. 46. The report said the category reflected metrics like pollution threats and air and water quality.

In January 2023, Cox signed the Utah Fits All Scholarship, a multi-use scholarship program for K-12 students in which participants can receive an education spending account of up to $8,000 to pay for education-related items, including textbooks, tutors and private school tuition.

“We’ve been able to get more funding for education, but also, we passed school choice to empower parents,” Cox said. “We’ve given our teachers the largest raises in our state’s history and given families more choices to be able to use taxpayer dollars to send their kids wherever they want to go. And so, again, not having it be a zero-sum game, finding solutions that benefit everyone and smaller government… I think those are the things that keep Utah No. 1.”

Utah has come out on top in other recent stats. Provo, Utah, claimed the top spot among 20 cities where young adults make up the largest percentage of homeowners, according to research from MoneyGeek. In the city, home to Brigham Young University, people under 25 make up roughly 39% of homeowners. And young adults own more homes than those ages 25-44, 44-65 or over 65, according to the report.

“We’re the youngest state in the nation,” Cox said. “We believe in families, and we think having kids is a great thing and really important. But also, we’re working hard. The price of housing has been going up, and we want kids to be able to own homes. And I’m grateful we have places like Provo that are leading there.” 

But, he said, they “still have work to do,” noting the state passed “the most aggressive starter home package in the country.” 

Utah Gov. Spencer Cox speaks at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Institute on May 9, 2024. (Fox News Digital)

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“We need to build 35,000 starter homes over the course of the next five years to keep the American Dream alive,” Cox said. “And so we’re dedicated to that. I believe it’s immoral to not have homeownership and the American Dream, the ability to buy a home and start a family as part of, again, the fabric of our society.”

Californians, in particular, have been migrating to Utah in recent years — nearly 19,000 in 2022, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. 

“I think there’s lots of reasons,” Cox said of Californians coming to Utah. “Again, I think we have a very strong economy. For sure. I think we’re much less regulated. I do think that these are the laboratories of democracy. California’s chosen a very different path, you know, a very progressive path. And, and I think it shows it’s not working as more and more people are leaving California. And I think what we’re doing in Utah is working, and that’s attracting people from California and elsewhere.”

Cox said Utah’s issues now were “growth related” from people flooding into the state.

“People always ask me, how are you going to stop that from happening? Well, I can’t. I want us to be the No. 1 state,” he said.

Fox News’ Sean Hannity confronted California Gov. Gavin Newsom last June about his state’s population exodus. California lost 117,552 people between Jan. 1, 2021 and Jan. 1, 2022, according to the state’s Department of Finance, dropping its population down to where it was in 2016.

Welcome to Utah sign on Utah-Arizona border. (Education Images/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)

Newsom highlighted his state’s economic outlook and pointed to red states that lost residents.

“Look at the facts,” Newsom said. “We’re the fourth-largest economy in the world. This belies all of that rhetoric, everything you just said. You didn’t talk about all those red states that have opposite policies that you embrace. Something is clearly not working right in those states… Mississippi, Louisiana, West Virginia that all had higher population loss.”

California’s population increased by 67,000 people last year to 39,128,162, according to recent data released by the California Department of Finance (DOF), marking the first year since 2020 that the state has seen a net increase.

To keep up with the influx of people and retain a high quality of life, Cox said Utah has to invest in infrastructure.

“I hope that other states will copy what we’re doing so that their residents don’t feel like they need to leave, that they’ll want to stay because they’re doing, they’re deregulating and adopting these conservative values that have made Utah such an attractive place,” he said.

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Fox News’ Alicia Warren contributed to this report.

John Dougall, Utah’s state auditor and candidate for U.S. Congress, criticizes the sponsor of Utah’s 2024 transgender bathroom ban, alleges the law was just for show.

A toilet flushes. Then, Utah Auditor John Dougall steps out of a stall.

“Are you the bathroom monitor?” Dougall asks viewers of a video posted to his campaign account on X evening. “I actually thought the Legislature assigned me to be the bathroom monitor.”

The one-minute clip released on Monday — the first day of lawmakers coming together for interim meetings since this year’s session ended — is the latest in a feud that’s erupted between the auditor and Republican lawmakers since a transgender bathroom ban took effect earlier this month.

“We have a piece of legislation that the sponsor doesn’t seem to actually understand,” Dougall says in the video, his voice echoing in the small space. “She implied that I didn’t care about women’s safety in bathrooms — nothing could be further from the truth. And if this bill were actually about making girls safer, don’t we think that the Legislature could actually spend some money retrofitting bathrooms and providing greater privacy and further safety?”

Dougall continues, “Instead, it looks like this piece of the bill was really more about show than substance. But it wouldn’t be the first time the Legislature did something like that, would it?”

Morgan Republican Rep. Kera Birkeland’s “Sex-based Designations for Privacy, Anti-bullying and Women’s Opportunities,” or HB257, changes the legal definitions of “female” and “male” to categorize Utahns by the reproductive organs of their birth, and restricts which bathrooms and locker rooms trans people can use in government-owned buildings.

It requires new construction of state buildings to include single-occupancy “privacy spaces,” such as bathrooms or showers, and asks that existing buildings “consider the feasibility” of adding them.

The bill did not appropriate any funding toward building such spaces. A fiscal note did, however, note that a separate mandate that Dougall’s office “establish a process to receive and investigate alleged violations of this chapter by a government entity” would likely cost $20,000.

Within the first few days of the required reporting form going live, Dougall told The Salt Lake Tribune that his office had received thousands of hoax complaints. He released a statement on the state auditor’s website last week labeling the Legislature “invasive and overly aggressive.”

Birkeland has responded with reprovals of her own.

“The joke is on these activists,” Birkeland wrote on Thursday on X. “While they waste their time, Utah will continue to protect girls and women. And I look forward to working with our next state auditor, because I know that he will take the role of protecting women seriously.”

Dougall is not running to be reelected state auditor, but instead competing to replace Rep. John Curtis in Utah’s 3rd Congressional District.

PANGUITCH — Utah Prairie Dog Day was held Thursday at Bryce Canyon National Park to celebrate and raise awareness for the once-endangered species, and the large part Utah Prairie Dogs play in the state’s ecosystem.

The Utah Division of Wildlife Resources coordinated the event with the park, where Petey the prairie dog joined a group of kids and parents. Research Egologist with the United States Geological Survey David Eads spoke and held games with the kids, and drawings from the event of Utah prairie dogs will be displayed in the visitor’s center.

“It’s important I think for adults too. Kids are really fun to teach, and oh my gosh it was amazing watching all the kids today. It was like — the line for all the kids that wanted to do the little prairie dog calling contest was amazing,” said Utah Prairie Dog Recovery Biologist Barbara Sugarman. “I think there’s so much to learn about what can be done with the species.”

According to the National Park Service, Utah prairie dogs are one of five species living in North America. Prairie dogs once scattered an enormous area of the western Great Plains, and Utah prairie dogs were recorded in numbers as high as 95,000 in the 1920s.

As western settlers continued to move in, the number of Utah prairie dogs declined because of pest control, disease, and loss of habitat. By 1972, Utah prairie dogs had been reduced to an estimated 3,300, the DWR stated. In 1973, the mammals were considered an endangered species.

“I know there’s definitely some conflict situations with Utah prairie dogs and we want to make sure we help those folks and also help the species at the same time. We do lots of trapping and translocation efforts in those conflict situations,” Sugarman said.

Sugarman said conservation strategists reintroduced a colony to Bryce Canyon National Park in the 1980s. Sugarman said 153 Utah prairie dogs now live inside the park, making up the largest protected population of Utah prairie dogs.

Range-wide, Sugarman said conservationists counted over 9,500 Utah prairie dogs during the spring count of 2023. However, because of the timing of the count, and the fact that young prairie dogs and newborns will not be seen, DWR estimated a population of over 69,500.

Sugarman said the DWR works with multiple other agencies, including biologists with Bryce Canyon, the Bureau of Land Management, the U.S. Forest Service, the Utah Fish and Wildlife Conservation Office, and even Utah counties.

She said that due to the communal effort, all units met their recovery goal for the first time in 2023, which was a “huge accomplishment.”

“It’s a really good story of conservation success, Utah prairie dogs are doing really well right now, the population is pretty close to one of the all-time high peaks right now,” Sugarman said. “I like to say it’s a good lesson of partnership and how working together really accomplishes amazing conservation goals.”