By Bridger Beal-Cvetko | KSL News
SALT LAKE CITY — Gubernatorial candidate Brian King knows all too well how difficult it is to be a Democrat in Utah's GOP-dominated Legislature, but says he's learned in his 16 years on Capitol Hill how to work across the aisle to pick up incremental wins.
He compared Democrat's approach in Utah to Avis Car Rental's old corporate motto, "We Try Harder," which it instituted in 1962 to spin the company's status as the second largest rental company in the U.S. behind Hertz.
"We're No. 2, we try hard," King said during an interview with the KSL and Deseret News editorial boards Monday. "Well, Democrats do have to work hard to get things done, but if you make the effort to find common ground and work closely with your colleagues, you can accomplish some excellent things."
King, who previously served as the Utah House Minority Leader and represents Salt Lake City constituents in Utah's House District 23, can't run through the same laundry list of policy wins as his Republican colleagues love to tout, but he said Democrats have "had some very good bills passed and we stopped some bad bills from happening."
Being a Democrat in the Utah Legislature is "very much a David vs. Goliath circumstance," King said, noting at the end of the story, "David wins."
King certainly faces an uphill climb if he wants his story to have a similar conclusion. He is running to replace a popular incumbent in Gov. Spencer Cox, in a state that hasn't elected a Democrat to lead it since former Gov. Scott Matheson was reelected in 1980.
In today's highly polarized climate, it's becoming increasingly rare to have a governor represent a state that leans toward an opposing party. Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly, Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear and North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper are currently the only Democratic governors to represent states that voted for former President Donald Trump in the 2020 election.
But King is hopeful his faith — as a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and his experience as a lay bishop on his campaign site — will help him with with moderate Republicans and those disaffected by the party's embrace of Trump. He pointed to a letter released last year by the First Presidency of the church encouraging members not to vote a straight ticket in elections.
"I think that statement from the First Presidency has encouraged me greatly," King said. "Young voters, even LDS voters, are much more inclined to look at Democrats and say, 'This is something that I want to take a second look at.'"
King said it was "so disappointing" to see Cox — a longtime Trump skeptic — throw his support behind the former president and GOP presidential nominee last month after Trump was struck by a bullet in an attempted assassination. He said the governor's belief the incident would change the former president's approach "rang hollow."
"I like Spencer Cox personally ... but that change was was so disappointing to me," King said.
If King's critiques of Cox's administration are to be summed up in a few words, the representative says he wishes Cox would have "pushed back" more on the Legislature, specifically when it comes to the recent redistricting maps, bills to ban abortion with few exceptions and close elective abortion clinics, limit public access to lawmakers' calendars and a general focus on what he called "culture war issues."
He believes Utah's legislative branch is not representative of Utahns as a whole and has been "co-opted" by the "loudest, most fringe voices" in the Republican Party. If elected, he won't automatically be better able to push back on bills that have overwhelming support from legislative Republicans, but King said he hopes the "subtle" change in having a Democratic governor will give cover to moderate and swing-district Republicans to vote against some of the more contentious proposals.
"They won't have an impact on the most fringe members of the supermajority party," King said, "but there are some moderates in swing districts who will say, 'I need to stand up against my fringe people and I need to support what I'm seeing what the majority of the people of Utah are going to say."
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