Utah Congressional Map Could Be More Representative
- Noble Predictive Insights
- Jun 27
- 4 min read
By Bradley Wascher, NPI Data Analyst, and David Byler, NPI Chief of Research
A battle is brewing in Utah.
Right now, the Republican majority in the state legislature draws the maps. That’s standard practice – state legislators draw congressional maps in 39 states. But the state’s congressional map – which allowed Republicans to easily sweep all four of the state’s seats in 2024 – has come under fire for being too slanted towards Republicans. And, according to our Q1 UTPOP survey, 65% of Utah voters think an independent commission (not the state legislature) should draw the lines.
In light of this fight, we did a deep dive into potential alternative maps. We dug into citizen-drawn maps from the indispensable Dave’s Redistricting App (DRA) and saw what would happen if mapmakers attempted to maximize state-level partisan fairness, competitiveness, and minority representation. We found that everything hinges on what mapmakers do with Salt Lake City.

The most proportional map, according to DRA, is achieved by splitting Salt Lake City. One district begins in the west and stretches to cover the entire bottom half of the state; it would have voted for Donald Trump by 36 points in 2024. The eastern district is located entirely within Salt Lake County and would have voted Harris +17 — almost surely enough to elect a Democrat to Congress.
Meanwhile, the most competitive map, as its name implies, aims to maximize the number of close elections. This design cordons off Utah’s second-largest city from its third, creating a Harris +10 district in the northwest, including West Valley City, and a Harris +3 district with West Jordan that slithers to straddle the state’s entire eastern border. This would guarantee more exciting races across the board, potentially at the cost of proportionality: in a typical election year, Democrats could win 50% of seats without winning 50% of votes.
The map with the most minority representation follows an east-west cut similar to the proportional map. But as is often the case with minority-access districts, the lines connecting communities of interest are not the smoothest. The western district, which voted Harris +11 and is one-fourth Hispanic, pulls in bits of both Salt Lake City, West Valley City, and West Jordan, before tracing Interstate 15 all the way up to Layton then Ogden. The eastern district is much whiter and much more competitive: Trump would have carried it by just 1 point in 2024 — potentially leading to the same issues as the competitive map concerning proportionality.
The bottom line: If Salt Lake is broken up, Republicans can essentially guarantee wins in four out of four seats. If Salt Lake is kept a bit more intact (or broken up slightly differently), other possibilities materialize.
Many Utah politicos are already aware of this fact. Prior to the 2022 redistricting, Utah had a competitive seat, anchored in Salt Lake City. In 2018, the 4th district – much of which is in the Salt Lake area – elected Democrat Ben McAdams by less than a point. In 2020, Republican Burgess Owens beat McAdams there by just a point.
During the latest round of redistricting, that district was eliminated.
At the time, Republican state Rep. Paul Ray described the new map as a “good balance of urban-rural mix.” There’s some truth here, but the strongest argument for a 4-0 GOP map in Utah often goes unstated. Redistricting is a national war, and lawmakers in red states like Utah may feel pressure to draw as many safe seats as possible to counterbalance Democrats, who get a disproportionate share of seats in a blue state like Illinois. Neither side trusts the other. And both have an incentive to create slanted maps in safe states.
Individual lawmakers may not think in these terms. And not every red or blue state is gerrymandered. But, nationally, game theory seems to be working its magic. Legislators have stuffed their maps with safe red and blue seats and, if the right political winds are blowing, either side can win a narrow House majority.
This is cold comfort to Utah voters, who expressed clear dissatisfaction with the legislature in our poll. When presented with two arguments – that state legislators should draw maps because they’re accountable to voters, and that state legislatures can’t be trusted to draw fair maps – 57% agreed with the latter argument. This finding – along with the 65% who trust independent commissions over state legislators to draw maps – paint a clear picture of what Utah voters want in their state.
It's possible to imagine a world where everyone disarms in the redistricting wars – and where voters are happier. State legislators and independent commissions could draw more politically proportional maps in each state and find a way to make sure the national map is, in the aggregate, roughly fair. But it’s also possible to imagine a world where one party or one set of states naively disarms first – only to let the other draw unfair maps, unanswered.
For now, Utah voters — particularly those in Salt Lake County — remain split.
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