- First-term Rep. Ben McAdams will face Burgess Owens in Utah’s 4th Congressional District.
- The district is one of thirty which voted for President Donald Trump in 2016 but is currently represented by a Democrat.
- McAdams defeated incumbent Rep. Mia Rose in 2018 by only 697 votes – just 0.257 percent.
First-term Rep. Ben McAdams will face Republican and former NFL football player Burgess Owens in Utah’s 4th Congressional District.
The candidates
McAdams is the only Democratic member in Congress from Utah. He was formerly the mayor of Salt Lake County, a position he held for six years. McAdams is member of the Blue Dog Coalition of fiscally conservative Democrats and sits on the Financial Services Committee and the Committee on Science, Space, and Technology.
In 2018, McAdams defeated Republican incumbent Rep. Mia Love by just 697 votes – a margin of 0.257 percentage points.
Owens is a former safety in the National Football League for the New York Jets and Oakland Raiders. Following his football career, Owens ran an electronics company with his brother which ultimately ended in Owens filing for bankruptcy.
He later moved to Utah in 2012 and founded Second Chance 4 Youth, a non-profit which supports incarcerated children. He frequently appears as a guest commentator on Fox News and spoke at the Republican National Convention.
On his campaign website, Owens cites some of the hardships he’s faced in his life as motivating his fundamental belief in the power of hard work and the unique promise that America offers.
“Seven years after my NFL retirement and business failure I experienced a long summer during which I worked a series of jobs necessary to support my family and start my journey out of poverty,” he wrote. “That included a day job as a chimney sweep followed by a midnight shift as a security guard. It was at the end of this long summer that I would begin a successful 25-year career in the corporate arena. ”
The liberal media watchdog organization Media Matters for America reported in late August that Owens had plagiarized significant portions of his book “Why I Stand” from Wikipedia, History.com, and several news publications.
The district
Utah’s 4th Congressional District is located in the center of the state. It is home to much of Salt Lake County and parts of Utah, Juab, Sanpete counties, and a portion of Salt Lake City. The district was first included on the ballot in 2012 following new data from the release of the 2010 U.S. Census.
The central Utah district is one of just thirty in the United States which voted for President Donald Trump in 2016 but is currently represented by a Democrat. Trump carried the district by 6.7 percentage points 39.1% to 32.4% in 2016, according to the Daily Kos.
The money race
According to the Center for Responsive Politics, McAdams has raised $3.4 million– over four times more than Burgess with $769,000. With $2.6 million in cash on hand, McAdams has amassed vastly more than Burgess who has only $92,686 in remaining cash on hand.
What some of the experts say
The race between Owens and McAdams is rated as a “toss-up” by The Cook Political Report, “tilts Democratic” by Inside Elections, and “leans Democratic” according to Sabato’s Crystal Ball at the University of Virginia Center for Politics.