Utah House Democrats Election Gains, Digi Mart USA News (Salt Lake City, Utah): After polls closed on election night, Ofa Matagi was not able to join her fellow candidates at the Utah Democrats’ watch party. Instead, she was at home with family under strict doctor’s orders to rest.
She was caring for a days-old newborn boy, whose birth she was still recovering from. He had been born just the week before.
Leading up to Election Day, Matagi had been knocking on doors in House District 43, which includes parts of Sandy, Midvale and Cottonwood Heights, while “heavily pregnant,” she said.
Matagi did not watch the results as they posted. To ease her anxiety, she waited to see what kinds of texts she received from friends.
She expected either messages saying, “You did a great job, but better luck next time,” or congratulatory ones, which she considered “a long shot.”
The message she received from one of her close friends, Rep. Verona Mauga, D-Salt Lake City, said, “You’re ahead!” “I started crying,” she told Utah News Dispatch on Thursday.
“It was just so surreal.”
As the dust settles from Election Day, which brought a historic blue wave that hit not only nationally but also Utah, a typically Republican state, Matagi’s lead over Republican incumbent Rep. Steve Eliason continues to hold by nearly 12 percentage points, according to preliminary results.
Matagi had nearly 56% of the vote to Eliason’s 44%.
Matagi had not declared victory on Thursday, noting that some votes remain to be counted. However, her double-digit margin makes it unlikely the race will flip.
She is one of several Utah House Democratic and unaffiliated candidates on pace to take 16 seats from House Republicans, which would break the Utah House’s GOP supermajority for the first time in decades. House Republicans are still on track to keep a simple majority.
Matagi’s campaign, by her estimate, had one of the smallest budgets. “I did as much as I could, but I ran a very humble, shoestring budget for this campaign,” she said.
She never expected to have such a lead over Eliason, who had served in the Legislature for 16 years.
Matagi’s win, however, is one of several that some Democrats in power consider bittersweet. The source article continues with further details on the mixed reactions to the loss of some moderate Republicans.
