Wasatch County Republicans Turn Out in Force at Nominating Convention

The sharpest test of delegate power at Tuesday night's Wasatch County Republican nominating convention was a race between two women who both call themselves Republicans: incumbent Clerk-Auditor Joey Granger and challenger Michelle Kellogg, currently the Park City recorder. Under party rules, whichever candidate could not clear 60 percent of the delegate vote would be forced into a June 23 primary, meaning the convention itself was a potential elimination round, not merely a rubber stamp.

The convention at Rocky Mountain Middle School in Heber drew from a pool of 304 county delegates elected across 53 precincts at the March 17 caucus night. That delegate ceiling surpasses the record 234 who packed the same gymnasium in 2024, a benchmark the party's interim chair, Patty Sprunt, had cited when she encouraged Republicans after the March caucuses drew a smaller crowd than she hoped.

Delegates faced choices on five contested county offices: clerk-auditor, sheriff, county attorney, and two council seats. The sheriff's race pitted incumbent Jared Rigby against Jeremy Hales, adding another race where the 60-percent threshold loomed. A candidate who falls short at convention but still wants a path to the ballot can pursue one under Utah S.B. 54, which allows signature gathering as an alternative route to the primary regardless of convention outcome.

The clerk-auditor contest carries particular institutional weight. Granger began her first full term in 2023, while Kellogg brings municipal experience from Park City's recorder's office. Whoever advances will oversee elections administration in a county where Republicans dominate registration and where every consequential race in November is essentially decided in the primary.

House District 59 candidates were not on Tuesday's ballot. Wasatch County state delegates will nominate candidates for that seat at the Utah Republican Party's statewide convention on April 24, giving those races one more layer of party process before voters weigh in.

The June 23 primary is the next hard deadline. Any race where no candidate reached 60 percent Tuesday night will extend the contest to that date, giving voters a direct say in the same offices where delegates held the first cut.