Gov. Spencer Cox issues reversal, says he will vote for and endorse Donald Trump

SALT LAKE CITY — Utah Gov. Spencer Cox said Friday he will endorse and vote for Donald Trump this fall — a dramatic reversal from just last week when he said he wouldn’t vote for the former president.

The change comes shortly after the attempted assassination of Trump — who is the Republican presidential nominee — last weekend in Butler, Pennsylvania, which Cox called a “miracle.” He said the “sobering moment” led to a weekend of prayer and reflection that resulted in his change in stance toward Trump.

The Republican governor has long said he doesn’t plan to vote for Trump in 2024 and did not vote for him in the previous two presidential elections.

“I spent the night distraught, worried about our nation and what we’ve become; who we are,” he told reporters during his monthly PBS Utah news conference Friday.

The governor described the shooting — which killed one rallygoer and critically injured two others — as “something very tragic that happened in our nation.” He recalled watching the news coverage after President Ronald Reagan was shot in 1981 when he was in early grade school, noting that while political violence has been on the rise recently, it’s been decades since a sitting or former president has been shot.

He pointed to a recent report that political threats are on the rise in Utah, and said, “We’ve certainly had them against me and my family.”

Cox privately expressed support for the former president in a letter following the shooting at a rally on Saturday and called on Trump to try to unify the country. He noted that “turning down the temperature” isn’t a strong suit of Trump’s, but he believes he has seen a real change in the former president’s tone since the shooting, saying “there’s a willingness to try.”

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READ MORE: Cox privately expresses support for Trump in letter, calling his survival a ‘miracle’

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While Trump took a more reflective tone during the first few minutes of his speech at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee Thursday night, he quickly returned to his usual stump speech during his lengthy address. But Cox is still confident that Trump will continue with a more unifying message.

“He’s never said things like he’s said in the past week. … I don’t know what it feels like to have a bullet graze your ear,” he said, noting that he expects the near-death experience to continue to impact the former president.

He said he’s not “naive” to think that Trump has undergone a complete transformation, but doesn’t expect to change his mind again when it comes to supporting him.

“I’m doing everything I can to help and support him. We’ll still have lots of disagreements, I’m sure,” he said. “I do think that I can help and be a voice when it comes to helping to unify our nation, when it comes to helping to lower the temperature.”

Even if Trump doesn’t moderate his rhetoric, “I’ve made my commitment that I will do this,” Cox said.

In the letter, which he posted on social media Friday morning, Cox implored Trump to listen to his “better angels.” He said the country is “on the verge of being torn apart” and said he believes Trump is capable of healing the division — comparing him to President Abraham Lincoln.

“I pray we can avoid any more senseless violence and loss of life,” he wrote. “We truly need a Lincoln to bring us together. Indeed it was Lincoln who said, ‘Do I not destroy my enemies when I make them my friends?’ You, and only you, can be that kind of leader for us today.”

Last Sunday I was feeling incredibly discouraged about our nation. After much prayer and searching about how to help heal our divides, I felt I needed to write former President Trump. I’m hopeful I can help in some small way. pic.twitter.com/RBOgFTHE39

— Spencer Cox (@SpencerJCox) July 19, 2024

Utah state Rep. Brian King, Cox’s Democratic gubernatorial challenger, issued a statement in response to the governor’s pivot Friday, saying that Cox had “kissed the ring and given his full endorsement to Trump, a convicted felon.” King said Cox’s decision was “another example of Gov. Cox not sticking to principles but going where the wind blows him” and referenced comments from Trump’s convention speech Thursday in which he “called for mass deportations and lied about the 2020 election results.”

“You deserve a governor who won’t leave you wondering if today’s the day he’ll have the political courage to do what’s right, or if he’ll continue pandering to outside pressure, special interests, donors, and extremists in his party,” King said. “We’re building a coalition of pragmatists, not purists, who want honest, commonsense leadership back in the governor’s office. If you agree, join us — for the better.”

Cox has been critical of Trump in the past and called for accountability for the former president following the Jan. 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol insurrection. His past resistance to Trump’s growing hold on the Republican Party had earned him the derisive label of “Republican in name only” from some Utah conservatives and he was seen nationally as one of the last holdouts from the GOP before Trump’s rise.

In February, he said the Republican Party was making a mistake by nominating Trump again and has said more than once that he believes the party that nominates someone besides Trump or President Joe Biden would win by a landslide in 2024.

Cox predicted then that Trump will beat Biden this November and seems even more sure of that following the assassination attempt. He seemed less sure of his previous assertion that anybody not named Biden or Trump would sail to victory, even as some Democrats wrestle with asking Biden to drop out following his disastrous debate performance last month.

A recent AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs research poll found that nearly two-thirds of Democrats and 70% of Americans want Biden to withdraw. The poll also found a majority of Americans, 57%, want Trump to drop out of the race, including 26% of Republicans.

“I don’t know that it would change my calculus” of the race, Cox said, when asked if Vice President Kamala Harris or another Democrat would face better odds against Trump.

He noted that Harris is also generally unpopular and said the idea of an open Democratic convention “is just wild … I don’t know how they would pull that off.” Both parties have failed to nominate candidates who are broadly respected and committed to cooling the political temperature, he said.

“Americans weren’t happy with either candidate,” Cox said. “I don’t think that that’s changed.”

You can watch the entire press conference below: