Lt. Gov. Spencer Cox of Utah won last week’s Republican primary for governor, according to results released Monday.
He defeated Jon Huntsman Jr., who served as governor from 2005 to 2009 before resigning to become President Barack Obama’s ambassador to China. The Associated Press called the race Monday night, and Cox said on Twitter that Huntsman had called him to grant.
Mr. Cox is expected to win the governorship in November over the Democratic nominee, Chris Peterson. Utah has not elected a Democrat as governor in more than 35 years.
The primary was a convoluted political story: Mr. Cox is the current Lieutenant Governor to Governor Gary Herbert, who got the job because he had been Lieutenant Governor himself under the command of Mr. Huntsman. Mr. Herbert chose this year to endorse Mr. Cox instead of Mr. Huntsman.
Mr. Huntsman’s campaign was interrupted last month when he tested positive for the coronavirus. Since then it has recovered.
To some extent, Huntsman’s loss was surprising given his political history: he was one of the country’s most popular governors when he left office. But he is also a moderate Republican who served as ambassador to China under Obama, in addition to his positions in the Republican administrations, and moderation and bipartisanship have not tended to play well in the Republican primaries in the era of President Trump.
He also served as ambassador to Russia with Trump before resigning in August.
Huntsman ran for the Republican presidential nomination in 2012 and placed third in the New Hampshire primary, but ended his campaign before the South Carolina primary and endorsed Mitt Romney. Romney lost in the general election, but made his own political comeback in Utah, which elected him to the Senate in 2018.
