Utah, we have a horse race.
And whoever wins, it will be good for everybody.
Salt Lake County Mayor Ben McAdams, a Democrat, announced the other day that he will challenge incumbent Republican Mia Love for her 4th District seat in the U.S. House of Representatives in the 2018 election.
Despite the best efforts of the Republican-controlled Utah Legislature to split the state into four safe Republican districts, the 4th District — mostly bits of Salt Lake and Utah counties — remains relatively competitive. That’s a good thing, as it encourages viable candidates from both parties to run, and run hard, debate the issues, hold each other to account and, most important of all, engage the voters.
No state is well governed when one party holds all the cards. Either incumbents get re-elected over and over without having to answer any questions, or they get challenged from the radical fringe. Either way, voters are justified in feeling left out of the process, if not downright disrespected.
With McAdams challenging Love, voters of the 4th District will have a choice between two experienced politicians, in a contest that is more likely to turn on which one of them presents the most reasonable, workable, sensible and humane platform, not the most absurd or furthest out there.
Already, Republican Love has staked out relatively progressive positions on such issues as limiting carbon emissions while Democrat McAdams has demonstrated fiscal good sense and management skills. Each is the kind of candidate that free-thinking voters might cross the aisle to support.
A quick poll of the district shows Love ahead of McAdams 48 percent to 42 percent, with only 9 percent not choosing. That’s a highly closable gap for McAdams to make up in the next 13 months, if he can put together a message that reaches voters across the political and social spectrum.
If the mayor wins, or even runs Love a close contest, there is hope that it would help the mostly moribund Utah Democratic Party improve its standing, raise money and, most important for the future of all Utahns, develop a bench of voters, activists and candidates.
That could lead to more competitive races up and down the ticket, with both parties knowing that they have a real chance to win by reaching out to the broadest possible swath of voters.
And that, in turn, is likely to do something to pull Utah from its deplorable position of 39th in the nation, and falling, in terms of voter participation.
Even voters who, in the end, decide not to cast their ballots for McAdams owe him some thanks for throwing his hat in this ring.