Ben McAdams for Utah

What I'm seeing elsewhere, especially in Salt Lake County, that's really interesting to me is how much Democrats are outpacing Republican voters in the early turnout so far.

I think there's a lot of enthusiasm right now in Salt Lake County for Democrats to vote for Ben McAdams.

Democrats are going to get a seat in Congress, likely a majority house here and be a part of that.

That is, I think, huge for them.

Their share of the total registered voters in the county, which is really significant.

And so I have to give a lot of credit to the McAdams campaign.

Ben McAdams has raised nearly three million dollars.

A lot of that, I believe, is going into a GOTV campaign and a smart field campaign.

Yeah.

And I do love that you called out some of the other mayors who are running for Congress and few new dealers who I know New Dems have endorsed, like Ben McAdams would be coming back, Paige Cognetti in Scranton, Luke Bronin in Hartford, all people like you who are focused on results and getting stuff done.

You also, I think, chair the local elected officials caucus within Congress.

Can you just say a couple more words about why it's important to have people who kind of had to deliver results as mayor once you get to Congress?

But she has been one hell of a great mayor of Scranton, Pennsylvania.

And she is going to be a spectacular member of Congress.

And Ben McAdams, of course.

I mean, I love the guy.

I do think we're going to have a congressional seat that goes to a Democrat.

I think Ben McAdams is going to win.

Is it

going to be like the races when Burgess Owens, Mia Love were those really tight contests? No, I don't think it's going to be

tight.

I don't think it's going to be a pretty comfortable margin for Ben McAdams.

He's got a great candidate running against him from the Republican side.

But I think this has probably been McAdams race to lose.

Luke Bronin, who I already mentioned, was the mayor of Hartford, Connecticut.

Ben McAdams, who was in Congress for a while, is running again in Salt Lake and was the mayor of Salt Lake County.

But those are some examples of people who really had to deliver for their constituents and done a great job, whether it's Paige in Scranton running against corruption in her city and is going to take that to Washington, or Luke Bronin, who's done a lot of work on civic engagement and finding new ways for people to be involved so there's yeah there's a lot of i think that there's i don't think that i think that there i think that at state and local level you can really show those results and that people are going to be rewarded by being elected to higher office and that that's a good thing i think staying importantly once you get to congress staying as connected to your constituents back home as possible is like the key to staying in touch

Yeah.

Thank you, Maria.

And before you go, as we head into the last few weeks ahead of a critical midterm election, you might have seen or gotten political ads online for someone like Ben McAdams, Blake Moore, or Celeste Malloy.

You might also be wondering who is supporting these candidates and how much money has been spent in Utah.

KSL's Spencer Mahon joins me to talk about it.

And a lot of that spending on candidates in particular was done in the June primary.

And that's an important distinction before we continue going forward, because that's before we even get into state level issues and things of that nature.

And the reason that's important is because how these groups spent kind of influences the race that both the democrat party and the republican party want to run like with blake moore and celeste molloy you don't see as much money spent there in those districts because those are considered particularly safe republican seats where you've seen a lot of the spending is here in cd1 with ben mcadams and his competitor

So who did you speak to for about this story?