State Rep. Phil Lyman lost the Republican primary election for Utah governor by nearly 40,000 votes in June. Now, in the midst of pursuing multiple legal challenges to Gov. Spencer Cox’s eligibility for the ballot, he will launch a write-in campaign to replace the state’s top official.
In a social media post responding to a supporter Sunday afternoon, Lyman wrote, “I will be running as a write-in candidate in the general election in November,” then told another, “There is a true conservative option.”
“The only option we have is to pursue what’s available to us, and that’s through the courts and through potentially a write-in,” Lyman told The Salt Lake Tribune. The doubts he has raised about the election, with little evidence, have been “positive” for his campaign, he said.
On Monday, as part of one of his ongoing lawsuits tied to the election, he asked the Utah Supreme Court to stop the state from printing ballots until it rules on a case in which Lyman is urging justices to oust Cox and Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson, who is the state’s top elections official, from office and eliminate them from the November ballot. If Lyman prevails, U.S. Rep. John Curtis — who is running for Senate — would be removed from the ballot, too.
Lyman contends that the party’s nominees for top offices should be those who received more than 60% of delegate support at the Utah Republican Party’s nominating convention in April and not those chosen by more than 425,000 Republican voters in the June primary election.
In a news release Monday, Lyman accuses Henderson of “malfeasance in office for creating a counterfeit ballot,” which is a third-degree felony.
At convention, Lyman secured a little over two-thirds of delegates’ support, beating Cox, who landed on the ballot by gathering more than 28,000 signatures from voters. Cox emerged from the primary with 54.4% of Republican votes.
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This article is published through the Utah News Collaborative, a partnership of news organizations in Utah that aims to inform readers across the state.