SALT LAKE CITY — As election results come in, here's a look back at a brief history of Utah's elections and the Utahns who made their voices heard by voting — some of whom made history beyond the Beehive State.
That history starts even before the beginning, so to speak.
Utah’s first elections actually took place before it became a state, and they included a very special first — Utah women were the first to ever cast ballots in the United States.
The very first woman to ever vote in the United States was Seraph Young. She voted in Salt Lake City's municipal election on Feb. 14, 1870, long before Utah became a state.
The first election held in Utah an official state was in 1896. It was a presidential election between Republican William McKinley and Democrat-Populist William Jennings Bryan.
The state vastly favored Bryan because of his policies, and it showed — Utah has never had a wider margin in a presidential election since, with Bryan receiving 82 percent of the state's votes.
Alas, William McKinley became the 25th president of the United States of America, bringing Utah to an 0-1 start on its record.
Another historic "first" happened on Utah’s first Election Day as a state: Martha Hughes Cannon became the first woman in U.S. history elected to a state senate. She even ran against her husband for her seat in the Utah Senate (which must have been an awkward dinner table conversation).
During that 1896 election, the balance of power was wildly different than it is now.
In November of that year, there were only three Republicans serving at the state level. The rest were either members of the Populist Party or the overwhelming supermajority of Democrats.
Utah was entitled to only one member of the U.S. House of Representatives, with Democrat William H. King becoming the state's first-ever congressman. He would later go on to serve as U.S. senator for Utah as well.
Utah’s 2022 Senate race between Mike Lee and Evan McMullin has been the race to watch — so, what’s the history of senators in Utah?
Utah has had a total of 16 senators — 12 Republicans and 5 Democrats.
Utah has never elected an unaffiliated candidate to the Senate, and the last Democrat to serve was Sen. Frank Moss. He was unseated after 18 years by Orrin Hatch, who defeated Moss in the 1976 election and then went on to become the longest-serving senator in the history of the United States.
