Donald Trump picked a favorite in Utah’s GOP chair race — and delegates agreed

President Donald Trump wanted Utah Republican delegates to reelect Robert Axson as state party chair, and, on Saturday, delegates listened.

Axson narrowly secured another two-year term against challenger Phil Lyman, winning 1,340 delegate votes to Lyman’s 1,215 — roughly 52.3% to 47.5%.

According to party officials, five delegates’ votes were invalidated, for a total of 2560 votes cast — a number equal to the full count of delegates who attended the convention.

Trump endorsed Axson over Lyman in a post on his platform Truth Social earlier this month, and prominent Utah Republicans lined up behind the president.

“Robert Axson has my Complete and Total Endorsement for Re-Election as Chairman of the Utah Republican Party — HE WILL NEVER LET YOU DOWN!" the post said.

When asked by a reporter whether he attributed his win to Trump’s backing, Axson said he was grateful for the endorsement, but pointed to support from other elected officials and delegates.

“Do I think that I could have won on my own?” Axson asked. “No, I don’t. ... It takes everybody.”

Among the state’s elected officials who followed Trump’s lead was U.S. Sen. Mike Lee, who also introduced Axson as he took the stage to speak to delegates, saying, “I can’t think of anyone who has done more to mobilize and unify our delegate base.”

Axson previously worked for the senator. From the podium, the incumbent said, “Strength comes from learning and it comes from building, not through burning.”

In Lyman’s speech, sprinkled with allusions to the Bible and colonial America, the failed gubernatorial candidate countered by referencing Boston Tea Partiers: “They were called all kinds of horrible names too, including bridge burners, but they actually burned bridges to impede the direction of their enemy.”

Central to the race was a rift within the party over the way candidates qualify to appear on a primary ballot, deepened last election cycle by Lyman’s lost bid to unseat Gov. Spencer Cox.

At last year’s convention, Lyman topped Cox by a 2-to-1 margin among delegates. But Cox, whose campaign gathered signatures to qualify for the Republican primary two months later, won the wider GOP electorate’s support by nearly 40,000 votes.

Amid a write-in campaign for governor and a barrage of unsubstantiated claims of election fraud, Lyman asked the Utah Supreme Court to force Axson and the party to ignore the primary results and certify Lyman as the party’s nominee — a request justices refused.

While both chair prospects said they want to eliminate the option for candidates to gather signatures, they disagree on how to do it. Lyman believes the party can simply refuse to recognize the legitimacy of candidates who collect signatures, and Axson wants to continue to lobby the Legislature to intervene and repeal the law that enabled signature gathering — commonly known among delegates as SB54.

Speaking to reporters after the convention concluded, Axson said he’s not done fighting candidates’ ability to get on the ballot via petition.

“I’m not a fan of the signature path,” Axson said. “I believe in the caucus convention system and that delegate path, but you notice the message that I brought is not lawsuits, not division, not purity tests — it’s building something that can’t be ignored."

Lee, Axson’s former boss, called on the Legislature to convene a special session to repeal SB54 while giving an address to delegates Saturday afternoon. The reelected chair told reporters a repeal has enough support to pass the Utah House of Representatives, but not the state Senate.

As chair, Axson added, he won’t recruit candidates to challenge Republican incumbents in the Senate who are opposed to such a measure. “It can’t be a vitriolic conversation,” he said.

Ahead of the candidates’ speeches, a backlit delegate-size photo of Trump was propped up in front of Axson’s convention booth, alongside a sign that said, “Signature-only candidates did NOT receive donations or resources during primary.”

Where Lyman and his supporters gathered ahead of the convention’s kickoff, the acronym “MUGA” — Make Utah Great Again — was plastered on clothing and flyers.

A handout with a letter from Lyman, in which he made unsubstantiated allegations that the governor and lieutenant governor broke the law last election cycle, said on one side, “The State Organizing Convention could be our last battlefield.”

On the other side, under a bullet point titled “SB54,” Lyman continued, “When it comes to our Republican primary election, which includes the state convention, the Utah GOP must run its own primary independent of the state to remove any doubt who rightly controls the selection of our candidates from state to local races.”

That move, however, does not align with state statute, and would stop Republican delegates from being able to pick candidates at convention.

Under Utah law, only qualified political parties have the ability to place convention winners on the primary ballot.

But to maintain its qualified status, a party must allow candidates who gather enough signatures to compete in its primary races. Circumventing that requirement risks Republicans losing the ability to nominate candidates at convention altogether, meaning all candidates would have to collect signatures.

Delegates unceremoniously dismissed a proposed party constitutional amendment that would have temporarily kicked signature gathering candidates out of the GOP from the agenda at the behest of the delegate who sponsored the idea. One of the delegates who audibly voted “no” attempted to force a count of the votes, but the motion came too late, former party chair Thomas Wright said from the podium.

They did approve a platform amendment to reinforce the party’s opposition to signature gathering, reading, “We reject any method that bypasses our convention process, including the gathering of signatures.”