With Utah Congressman Rob Bishop’s decision not to seek re-election to another term in 2020, the question remains who will jump into the race in the incumbent’s absence. One local lawmaker has officially ruled out that option.
District 53 Rep. Logan Wilde announced in a Facebook post Tuesday he would not be running for Utah’s first congressional district. The Croydon-based Republican, who represents a portion of Summit County, says he had received a lot of interest from constituents about pursuing a congressional bid. But with his children still in school, Wilde says it isn’t the right time.
“The decision comes down to where am I going to spend time with my family," Wilde said. "Even moving forward, whoever runs at this point it's going to become a full-time job for them, and they're going to spend more and more of their time away from their family, even before they're elected, and that is an issue.”
Morgan County Councilmember Tina Cannon has announced her candidacy for the U.S. House seat, and Kaysville Mayor Katie Witt has also expressed an interest in running. Wilde says he expects a lot of high-quality candidates to jump into the race.
“Some of them haven’t announced, and I think you'll see about five or six more candidates jump into this race," Wilde said. "That's what I'm seeing. I've talked to several of them, and there are some really strong candidates coming in. That gives me hope that we’ll have a strong person in CD1.”
Wilde says candidates in Utah’s northern-most congressional district need to focus on transportation, supporting Hill Air Force Base and public lands.
“How do we preserve public lands moving forward?" Wilde said. "How do we make sure that those activities that are happening on public lands can still, I mean, how do we plan for those activities to go forward?”
As for his own seat in the state legislature, the next election for District 53 is also in 2020. Wilde says he will be seeking re-election to a third term. Wilde defeated Park City-based Democrat Chris Neville in 2018 with 65% of the vote.