Few real contests, lower turnout mark historic presidential election in Tooele County

On a day when Americans turned out in record numbers to elect the first black president in the nation’s history, only one race in Tooele County was truly competitive while local voter turnout fell far short of expectations.

Barack Obama capped a meteoric political rise by winning the White House handily, with 338 electoral votes to John McCain’s 163. The Illinois senator was propelled by record-breaking turnout across the nation, including the highest projected turnout of young and minority voters ever.

That wasn’t the story in Tooele County, however, where an 80 percent turnout predicted by County Clerk Marilyn Gillette never materialized. In fact, local voter turnout was slightly less than in the last presidential election.

As of midnight, when the last votes were counted, county voter turnout was only 62.7 percent. The Bush-Kerry race in 2004 got 66 percent of active registered voters to the polls.

“With 31.5 percent of the registered active voters voting early, conventional wisdom would indicate that shows a high interest in the election among voters and a high voter turnout,” said Gillette. “I am not sure why that didn’t happen. It may have been that as the national media started to predict winners before the polls closed, it took the wind out of the sails of some voters who decided not to vote.”

The only tight race within the county was ran for the District 21 seat in the state House of Representatives. Incumbent Democrat Jim Gowans narrowly defeated Republican Dan Egelund by claiming 48 percent of the vote to Egelund’s 45 percent. Gowans, who won a ninth term in the House, started the evening with a small lead that was whittled away as more votes were tallied. At one point, he was holding on with a mere 80-vote lead, but an 11:30 p.m. final update put him over the top for good.

Gowans admitted that Egelund probably did more campaigning, but also said the presidential election didn’t help him, running as a Democrat. On election night, 3,448 people in the county cast a straight-party vote for Republicans while only 1,955 cast a straight-party vote for Democrats.

“During presidential elections my race is always close,” Gowans said.

Egelund said he will probably run again for the seat in two years, adding that the third-party vote — Constitution Party candidate Jonathan Garrard took 6 percent of the vote — influenced the outcome of the election.

“The race wasn’t decided by the Democrats or the Republicans but by that percentage of voters who exercised their right to support a third-party candidate,” Egelund said. “I think the third party vote hurt me more than Jim did, but it could easily have gone the other way.”

Other incumbents — all of whom were Republican — sailed through the election.

Tooele County Commissioner Colleen Johnson earned another four years on the commission with 73 percent of the vote to Constitution Party candidate Wade Pearson’s 26 percent.

According to Gillette, that might be the largest percentage vote garnered by a third-party candidate in county history.

Rep. Ronda Rudd Menlove, R-Garland, retained her District 1 House seat — covering a large portion of Tooele County including Stockton, Rush Valley, Vernon, Wendover, Grantsville and Dugway — with 79 percent of the vote compared to Grantsville challenger Billy Morgan’s 21 percent.

In state Senate District 13, Republican incumbent Sen. Mark Madsen, R-Eagle Mountain, defeated his Democratic challenger Ken Peay by a decisive margin, 76 percent to 24 percent.

For the open state Senate seat in District 24, which includes the south half of Tooele City and most of Tooele County, along with five other counties, Tooele Democrat Tobiah Dillon was defeated by Sevier County Commissioner Ralph Okerlund, R-Monroe. Okerlund received 68 percent of the vote, while Dillon got 23 percent, and Benton Petersen of the Constitution Party received 9 percent. Dillon fared better in his home county, pulling down 40 percent of the Tooele County vote.

“That’s not bad for my first time out as a Democrat in Utah,” Dillon said. “I will be back in four more years, in the meantime I will be working to help the Democrats in Tooele recruit new voters.”

In the only contested Tooele County School Board race, Scott Bryan, with 53 percent of the vote, outpaced Matt Robinson with 46 percent.

Nationally, Tooele County supported John McCain with 63 percent of the vote — identical to McCain’s statewide margin of victory.

The county also mirrored the state in the gubernatorial race, voting 78 percent to return Jon Huntsman Jr. to the office. Democrat Bob Springmeyer took 19 percent of the vote in the county.

There are still some provisional ballots to be counted, and absentee ballots, if post marked by Nov. 3, will still be counted if they are delivered before noon on Nov. 17. That may inch up the voter turnout a little, but there are no races in the county close enough that Gillette expects any changes in the outcomes before the county commissioners meet to canvass the votes and approve the final election results on Nov. 17.

Tim Gillie: tgillie@tooeletranscript.com