Daily Kos Elections' project to calculate the 2016 presidential results for every state legislative seat in the nation hits Utah, a solidly red state that hosted an unexpectedly chaotic presidential race. Donald Trump defeated Hillary Clinton 46-27, with conservative independent Evan McMullin taking 22 percent; as a bonus, we've calculated McMullin's results in each legislative district in addition to Trump and Clinton's. You can find our master list of states here, which we'll be updating as we add new states; you can also find all our data from 2016 and past cycles here.
The GOP has controlled both chambers of the Utah state legislature since the 1970s, and Team Red maintains huge majorities. The Republicans have a 62-13 House supermajority, and a 24 to five edge in the Senate. Mitt Romney, Utah's possibly future U.S. senator, defeated Barack Obama 73-25 here, taking 68 of the 75 House seats and 27 of the 29 Senate districts. But things were a lot more eventful in 2016. Trump won a plurality in 55 House seats, while Clinton took 19 and McMullin managed to carry one. In the Senate, Trump carried 23 seats and Clinton won six, while McMullin struck out.
We'll start with a look at the House, which is up every two years, and the one McMullin seat anywhere in the country. McMullin's win came in HD-63, located in the Provo area. While Romney won it 86-11, McMullin outpaced Trump 44-32, with Clinton a distant third at 19 percent. Republican state Rep. Dean Sanpei defeated his Democratic foe 79-21.
McMullin came close to winning one other seat, the neighboring HD-64. Romney won 82-15 here, while Trump only outpaced McMullin 39-34, with Clinton taking 22; GOP incumbent Norm Thurston was unopposed. McMullin also took second place in another 31 seats, all of which were carried by Trump. McMullin's weakest performance was in HD-25, which just happened to be both Obama and Clinton's best seat. Obama carried this Salt Lake City seat 70-24, while Clinton beat Trump 74-11; McMullin took just 8 percent.
Clinton won a majority of the vote in the same seven House seats that Obama carried, and Democrats represent them all. An additional 12 seats went from Romney to Clinton; half these districts have a Republican representative, and Democrats hold the other six. No Democrats represent any Trump seats.
The Democrat in the most competitive seat is Sue Duckworth in Salt Lake County's HD-22. This seat went from 59-37 Romney to a thin 35.8-35.3 Clinton, while McMullin took 20.3 here. Amidst all this chaos, Duckworth beat her GOP opponent 52-48. The Republican in the bluest seat is Craig Hall in HD-33, another Salt Lake seat. This district went from 53-44 Romney to 45-31 Clinton, with 16 going to McMullin. However, Hall won 51-49.
It's no secret that Utah's large Mormon population did not like Trump, though many of them voted for him anyway on Election Day. Altogether, Trump took a majority of the vote (excluding write-ins) in only 23 of the 75 House seats. Romney scored a higher percentage of the vote in every single seat; unsurprisingly, the biggest swings were in McMullin's two best seats. The district that shifted the least from Romney to Trump was HD-69, which includes all of Carbon County. Romney won 71-26 here, while Trump defeated Clinton 67-20, with McMullin taking just eight.
Trump scored his highest percentage of the vote in HD-55, which is dominated by Uintah County. Trump beat McMullin 77-12, with Clinton taking 8 percent (this is the one seat where she failed to take at least 10 percent of the vote), though that was still quite the drop from Romney's 90-8 win.
We'll turn to the Senate, where half the chamber is up every two years. McMullin's best performance was in SD-16, another Provo-area seat. Trump beat him 42-35 here, with Clinton at 18; four years ago, Romney won it 86-11. McMullin took second in another 13 seats, all of which went for Trump. McMullin's worst performance was in SD-29, a Washington County seat that went from 83-16 Romney to 68-17 Trump, with McMullin at 11.
Clinton held the two Obama districts and took another four seats. All five members of the Democratic caucus, as well as Republican Brian Shiozawa, are on Clinton turf. The Democrat in the most competitive seat is Karen Mayne in SD-05 in Salt Lake County. This seat went from 57-40 Romney to 41-32 Clinton, with McMullin at 19 percent. Mayne was last up for re-election in 2014, when she won without opposition. Shiozawa's SD-08, which is another Salt Lake County seat, went from 57-40 Romney to 45-32 Clinton, with 17 percent for McMullin; Shiozawa won re-election last year 57-43.
Altogether, Trump won a majority in 10 of the 29 Senate seats. Trump did best in SD-24, which went from 87-11 Romney to 70 percent Trump, while McMullin beat Clinton 15-11 for second. The smallest drop between Romney and Trump was in the aforementioned SD-29, which was McMullin's worst seat.