Owens & McAdams Still In Tight Race For Utah’s 4th Congressional District

SALT LAKE CITY, Utah – After a 4 p.m. update from Salt Lake and Sanpete counties on Tuesday, Republican challenger Burgess Owens has received 164,446 votes to Democrat Ben McAdams’ 162,666 in the race for Utah’s 4th Congressional District, for a difference of 1,780 votes (0.51%).

Owens’ lead was 695 votes (0.21%) after a small update from Utah County officials, which was posted around 3 p.m. Tuesday.

The difference between the two candidates had shrunk to as little as 18 votes on Election Day, and the 2018 race between McAdams and Mia Love was decided by 700 votes.

ELECTION UPDATE: @BurgessOwens expands his lead to 1,780 votes against @BenMcAdams in #Utah's 4th Congressional District after more results released today.

Utah County says next results won't come until Friday. @KSL5TV @KSLcom @kslnewsradio #Election2020 #KSL2020 #utpol pic.twitter.com/0dLGmF1deU

— Ladd Egan (@laddegan) November 10, 2020

State election officials said there are 57,575 outstanding ballots in Utah, including 29,853 in Salt Lake County, 10,000 in Utah County and 186 in Sanpete County.

Utah’s 4th Congressional District represents parts of Juab, Salt Lake, Sanpete and Utah counties.

Juab County officials reported zero outstanding ballots on Tuesday.

MONDAY: After Monday’s update, Republican challenger Burgess Owens has received 154,217 votes to Democrat Ben McAdams’ 153,522 in the race for Utah’s 4th Congressional District, for a difference of 695 votes (0.21%).

Officials with Juab and Sanpete counties released updated results at 3 p.m. Monday; Salt Lake County’s update came just before 4 p.m. and included over 17,600 votes.

More updates are still expected from Salt Lake County and Utah County officials.

FRIDAY: After Friday’s updates, Democrat Ben McAdams has received 138,747 votes to Republican challenger Burgess Owens’ 138,342 in the race for Utah’s 4th Congressional District, for a difference of 405 votes (0.14%).

Both Salt Lake and Utah counties planned to update their results Friday. Utah County officials posted their update at 3 p.m. and Salt Lake County officials followed at 4 p.m.

Utah County officials said they would report another update Friday night with few votes in the 4th district race.

Finishing up today's late report. Likely to add ~5,600 votes to the county totals reported. Est. very few of those in CD04. Est. total left countywide around 25k. Also very few of them likely left from CD04, a few hundred perhaps. #utpol

— Utah County Elections (@UtahCoElections) November 7, 2020

“This is almost an exact repeat of what we saw in 2018 when we saw Mia Love get taken down by a similar margin,” said Jason Perry, director of the Hinckley Institute of Politics. “Seven-hundred votes is what we saw happen in that particular race. I think it’s going to be likely the same kind of scenario here.”

The 4th district represents parts of Juab, Salt Lake, Sanpete and Utah counties. However, Perry said he believes it will come down to Salt Lake County’s results.

The update from Utah County was not large enough to change percentages in #CD4 race. Showing only nine additional votes for @BurgessOwens and six additional votes for @BenMcAdams

Sanpete County will NOT be updating today@KSL5TV @kslnewsradio @KSLcom #ElectionResults2020 pic.twitter.com/w9kYLgtHu5

— Ladd Egan (@laddegan) November 6, 2020

“But the real story in this race going from today through the next couple of days is those remaining 80,000ish votes that are still outstanding in Salt Lake County,” he said. “That is going to be the deciding county once again in this race.”

“Nationally, mostly democrats were returning their ballots in early,” Perry added. “We saw that everywhere. It was not necessarily the case here in Utah. And it’s because mail-in balloting is not new to us. This is how we vote, whether you are Republican or Democrat.”

McAdams’ campaign responded to Friday’s update with the following statement:

“Again, we’re seeing numbers go back and forth as additional votes are tallied,” said Andrew Roberts, McAdams campaign manager. “We remain confident that Ben will be re-elected. We are grateful to Utah’s election clerks for their deliberate, thorough work on behalf of Utah voters and candidates.”

KSL has not received a statement from the Owens campaign.

THURSDAY: After a 6 p.m. update from Utah County, Republican challenger Burgess Owens has received 132,647 votes to Democrat Ben McAdams’ 130,363 votes in the race for Utah’s 4th Congressional District.

Salt Lake County released results from 34,568 ballots on Thursday.

Utah County said they planned on releasing 30,000 ballots Thursday, and 20,000 were released at 3 p.m. Another 14,000 were released around 6 p.m.

Utah County Clerk/Auditor Amelia Powers Gardner said her office has almost finished processing ballots that affect this race.

Approximately 165,000 ballots remained to be counted in Salt Lake County as of Thursday night, but those ballots will be split among the races for Utah’s 2nd, 3rd and 4th congressional districts.

After this latest update of 14k ballots from Utah County, @UtahClerkAmelia says her office has almost finished processing ballots from the 4th District race between @BenMcAdams and @BurgessOwens https://t.co/nTajQ84WUL

— Ladd Egan (@laddegan) November 6, 2020

The 2018 race between McAdams and Mia Love was decided by approximately 700 votes.