We’re going to have a rematch in Utah’s dark red 3rd Congressional District. GOP Rep. John Curtis, who beat out former state Rep. Chris Herrod for the Republican nomination in last year’s special election for Jason Chaffetz’s seat, outpaced Herrod 59-41 at Saturday's party convention, just shy of the 60 percent that the incumbent needed to win the nomination outright. That means the two will once again face off in the GOP primary, which takes place June 26. Curtis beat Herrod 43-33 in their matchup in August, then went on to easily win the special election in November.
Curtis very much looks like the frontrunner against Herrod once again, but an ongoing story could give him some problems. Five women recently filed a lawsuit alleging that former Provo police chief John King sexually harassed them, and also charged that city officials, including then-Mayor Curtis, failed to uncover similar incidents in King's past before they hired him in 2013.
King wound up resigning in 2017, and Curtis claimed the police chief was leaving to take care of his "sick mother." Curtis even planned a going-away party for him, but just before the festivities began, the Salt Lake Tribune reported that King wasn’t quitting for family reasons but had in fact been dismissed over sexual assault allegations. And that was something Curtis was apparently well aware of, because one woman, who’d been a volunteer at the police department, said she’d called Curtis to tell him that King had raped her on four separate occasions.
City officials are disputing the charges, and Curtis says he would not "knowingly do anything to shield any individual who acted inappropriately with respect to sexual harassment." The party for King, however, went ahead anyway.