SALT LAKE CITY — Former U.S. Ambassador and former Utah Governor Jon Huntsman Jr. has earned a spot on the June primary ballot.
The state elections office told FOX 13 that Huntsman qualified with 28,005 certified signatures. The threshold is 28,000. The campaign said it had 7,000 more to submit by Monday's deadline, but state officials stop counting once the threshold is cleared.
This means Huntsman will have a spot on the Republican primary ballot, facing off against Lt. Governor Spencer Cox and real-estate broker Thomas Wright, who also collected signatures and qualified for a spot on the ballot. They will face whomever emerges as a nominee out of the Utah Republican Party convention later this month.
Huntsman, who served as Utah governor from 2005-2009, is seeking his old job back. He resigned to become the U.S. Ambassador to China in 2009 under President Barack Obama. Under President Trump, he served as U.S. Ambassador to Russia from 2017-2019.
Huntsman is among six Republicans seeking the GOP nomination on the November ballot. A seventh, developer Jan Garbett, did not qualify after state officials said she had failed to submit the required number of signatures by Monday's deadline. Garbett tried to earn a spot on the GOP primary ballot through signature gathering only, and did not seek to go through the state convention.
