Having failed to win his party’s blessing at the 2022 GOP nominating convention, U.S. Rep. Blake Moore (R-Dist.1) will now face challenger Andrew Badger in the June 28 primary ballot.
SALT LAKE CITY — U.S. Rep. Blake Moore (R-Dist. 1) survived the 2022 GOP nominating convention here by the skin of his teeth Saturday.
After three rounds of voting by state delegates, Moore will advance to the GOP primary on June 28, where he will face challenger Andrew Badger.
Badger addressed convention delegates three times, in short speeches that sounded more like revival meetings. In the end, Badger came a hair’s breadth away from securing the nomination, with 59.2% of the vote cast to Moore’s 40.7%.
Business hopeful Michael Campbell of Ogden fell by the wayside on the convention’s first ballot with just 8% of the 935 ballots cast by District 1 delegates.
Mayor Julie Fullmer of Vineyard and former Morgan County Commissioner Tina Cannon were eliminated with 6.5% and 8.8% of 917 votes in the second round. But Cannon has already qualified to put her name on the primary ballot by collecting signatures.
“You don’t bring a knife into a shootout,” she told delegates. “You bring a cannon.”
On the final ballot, Moore shunned his carefully cultivated reputation for bipartisanship, preferring to stick to his bill to hold the Biden administration accountable for his hasty withdrawal from Afghanistan.
But a majority of delegates still preferred Badger’s fiery rhetoric.
Badger, a fifth-generation Utahn, earned a bachelor’s degree in government from Harvard College and a master’s degree in diplomacy from Oxford University.
Badger served as a civilian intelligence officer for six years, including volunteer tours in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Cannon is an accountant with experience in tax matters.
Moore is in his first term in Congress, having been elected in November 2020 to replace incumbent U.S. Representative Rob Bishop. He is a member of the House Armed Services and House Nature Resources committees.
He is one of only four freshman congressmen to have drafted bills that have passed the House and Senate and have been signed into law.
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