There’s a shift happening to youth sports across the country right now, that’s not immediately noticeable. Your kids league might still look familiar, still feel local. Maybe the prices are ticking up a bit, and the registration gets a little more “streamlined” with a new platform (and of course a new fee).

But then one day you realize you’re not dealing with a community organization anymore. You’re dealing with a system.

Youth sports has become a $40-billion-a-year business, and the private equity firms have noticed.

It works like this: a fund buys up local leagues, consolidates them, raises prices, locks in families, and siphons the money out. Wash, scale, repeat.

But the families paying the price have taken notice too, which is why Congressional Democrats, led by Senator Chris Murphy and Rep Angie Craig, just introduced the Let Kids Play Act.

This bill is designed to fight the private equity roll up model, which looks a little different in each state. (read our articles on private equity in healthcare!)

In some states the entire ecosystems like the fields, the ice rinks, the tournaments, even the video feeds, are owned by a single private equity-backed company. Parents are paying more, getting less, and occasionally being told they’re not even allowed to film their own kid’s game because the footage belongs to someone else now. Probably a company called GameChanger.

Now, if you’re on the sidelines at a Saturday morning soccer game in Sandy or Logan, you might think, ‘Not my problem.’ And you’re right, for now. The private equity money suck hasn’t reached our youth sports leagues to the same degree here in Utah as in other states. Which means our lawmakers still have a choice.

Our state leaders can wait until a single out-of-state corporation owns the fields, the snack bar, and the tournament schedule. Then they can spend a decade pretending they can regulate prices with loop-hole riddled policy. Or they can do the boring, unsexy thing now and institute policies and laws that keep leagues local, block quiet consolidation, and protect our neighborhoods from being quietly packaged into an investor’s portfolio. Because once that happens, you’re not fixing a market, you’re managing a monopoly.

The Utah Scene

Right now, youth sports in Utah is still recognizable. For our local soccer leagues there are choices. Impact United has been a local nonprofit since 1999 and while City SC is part of a California network that’s run youth soccer for four decades, it’s a nonprofit, not a private equity fund.

And when you look at baseball in the area, the teams are all locally owned for-profit, small businesses run by people you reach by texting a number off a flyer, not national chains owned by investors chasing an IPO. Expensive and privately run is not the same thing as private-equity-owned.

And then there’s hockey, which is nationally one of private equity’s favorite targets. In a dozen states, a single private equity-backed company owns the rinks, the leagues, the tournaments, and the streaming feed your kid’s game is locked behind, because parents aren’t allowed to film their own children skate.

It’s a real problem, and regulation is overdue. Utah just isn’t part of it. Yet. But that’s about to change.

In December, the University of Utah, a public, taxpayer funded institution, voted to bring a New York private equity firm into its athletics program, spinning the money-making side off into a new for-profit company. In a deal worth more than $500 million, the University insists it kept control.

And control, in these structures, is always the most flexible word in the room.

So, how exactly is that control wired? The University doesn’t own this new for-profit company directly. Instead, they put a separate foundation in the middle to act as a legal buffer. In fact, the state auditor pointed out that this middleman foundation was explicitly designed so the university doesn’t legally control it.

It’s like insisting you still run the family business after you’ve signed it into a trust you don’t control. You can call yourself the boss, but the paperwork says otherwise.

If the maneuver rings a bell, it should. Carve out the valuable piece. Move it into a new entity. Bring in outside capital. Treat control as a narrative instead of a legal reality.

We’ve watched the system run through our hospitals already. And now it’s in our publicly funded university.

The question isn’t whether private equity is interested in Utah’s youth sports market. The question is whether we notice (and our lawmakers do something about it) before the deals are done, and it’s too late to stop it.

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Executive Summary

This week, we are stepping out of the national shouting matches that dominate our social media feeds and pulling up a stool to look at where the game of politics is actually played: right in our own neighborhoods. Host Molly Jones sits down with Jared Eborn, a seasoned sports journalist turned Salt Lake County Democratic Party Executive Committee Secretary, to demystify the unglamorous, everyday mechanics of local policy. Together, they explore how the critical decisions made by city councils and county committees impact our daily lives far more than federal theater, shaping everything from our local school budgets and park upgrades to the maintenance of our sewer lines and public works.

Through the essential lenses of curiosity and neighborism, the conversation highlights the profound value of stepping onto the political playing field, whether by running for local office or simply engaging in backyard neighborhood discussions. Eborn shares his firsthand experiences knocking on thousands of doors and hosting intimate cottage meetings, illustrating how local governance thrives on mutual empathy and collaborative compromise rather than partisan warfare. It’s a refreshing reminder that when we choose to prioritize the real human beings standing three feet away from us over abstract digital divisions, we spark a collective curiosity that builds truly prosperous, joyful communities.

Key Takeaways

* The Impact of Local Policy: While national headlines capture our attention, local government decisions regarding public works, school funding, zoning laws, and neighborhood parks have a much more immediate and profound impact on our day-to-day quality of life.

* The Power of “Neighborism”: True civic resistance and community strength come from resisting neat, partisan categorization and instead choosing to humanize, empathize, and compromise with the literal neighbors in our own backyards.

* Demystifying the Political Field: Running for local municipal or county office isn’t just for career politicians; it requires normal, caring citizens to step up and bring fresh, empathetic perspectives to local boards and councils.

* The Shifting Media Landscape: Independent civic journalism faces severe funding and staffing shortages, leaving a critical gap in the consistent, objective coverage of smaller city and county council dynamics.

* Mutual Empathy Drives Compromise: At the municipal level, effective governance relies less on rigid national ideologies and more on finding middle-ground solutions that balance responsible regional growth with community quality-of-life concerns.

Transcript

Navigating Political Strategies: How Nate Blouin Is Using A Political Tactic To Drive Engagement.Discover the political strategies at play in the Congressional District 1 race, including insights from campaign experts on candidate tactics and election dynamics.In the fast-paced world of Utah politics, strategies can make or break a candidate's campaign. Recently, the Congressional District 1 race has drawn attention for its unique tactics and competitive atmosphere. In this episode, we'll explore key insights from political experts and discuss how candidates are navigating this challenging landscape.

Key Takeaways

* Political strategies, such as creating media moments and leveraging polling data, are crucial for candidates.

* The Abundance Agenda presents a new approach to governance focused on growth and community engagement.

* Understanding candidate dynamics helps voters develop a comprehensive view of the electoral landscape.

Understanding Political Tactics

Political campaigns are often defined by their strategies. One tactic that has surfaced in the District 1 race is the bold move by Senator Blouin, who vowed to drop out if his progressive rivals outperform him. This strategy is designed to create a media moment that positions him as a frontrunner. Blouin seeks to consolidate his support and push other candidates out of the race before the primary election.

The Role of Media in Politics

Media plays a critical role in shaping public perception during elections. Blouin's interactions with various influencers and commentators, such as Walter Masterson and Hassan Piker, showcase his attempt to leverage media attention to his advantage. This strategy not only amplifies his message but also connects him with a broader audience of potential voters. The upcoming Congressional District 1 debate is likely to further highlight these dynamics.

The Abundance Agenda: A New Approach

One of the intriguing aspects of this political landscape is the emergence of the "Abundance Agenda," a concept introduced by Derek Thompson and Ezra Klein. This framework emphasizes proactive, growth-oriented policies that aim to address issues like housing and infrastructure with urgency and efficiency.The Abundance Agenda advocates for a shift in how Democrats approach governance. Rather than focusing solely on regulatory constraints, it encourages a mindset that prioritizes building and improving community resources. DeSirant, who has implemented this agenda in his work on the Mill Creek City Council, highlights its effectiveness in fostering community engagement and development. The construction of Millcreek Commons serves as a prime example of how this approach can yield tangible benefits for residents.

The Impact of Candidate Dynamics

As candidates vie for attention and support, their strategies can lead to unexpected alliances and conflicts. Blouin's call for rivals to drop out is indicative of the high stakes involved. Political analysts, like Thom DeSirant, emphasize the importance of understanding the motivations behind such tactics, as they can significantly impact voter sentiment and election outcomes.

The Significance of Polling

Polling data serves as a vital tool for candidates to gauge their standing in the race. Blouin's campaign has reportedly conducted internal polling, which suggests he may be leading among progressive candidates. This insight informs his strategy and reinforces his position as a serious contender.

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“For hell’s sakes, grow up…this is beyond a joke” -Commissioner Boyd Bingham.

If you’ve opened a social media feed this week, you’ve seen the story. Hundreds of Box Elder County residents packing a fairgrounds in Tremonton, holding signs that say You Can’t Drink Data and Don’t Sell Us Out, while chanting “shame” at the three county commissioners who voted yes on Kevin O’Leary’s data center.

Whatever you think about data centers (and public opinion on them has shifted faster in the last thirteen months than almost any infrastructure issue) that’s not actually the story here.

The story is in the pattern of those in power and the ways they use it against us. Find a legitimate public purpose like military readiness, national security, AI competitiveness, whatever and bend it to benefit state leaders.

Then attach a financial vehicle that operates outside normal democratic accountability. It’s almost always real estate, which is convenient when the legislature is made up of developers.

Then move money and control in ways that wouldn’t survive a public vote. And, of course, don’t forget, when the locals get angry, call them paid protestors. Because nothing says ‘I’m out of touch’ more than insulting your own voters.

The reality is, by the time that fairgrounds room was full, the decision was already four months old. Governor Cox had been in conversations with project representatives since at least January 8th when it was documented in his own published schedule. (Remember how they voted to make their calendars secret too? It’s because that’s where the behind the scenes work happens.)

The entity that actually approved the project, a “magic eraser” state authority that can override local decisions called the Military Installation Development Authority, or MIDA, signed off on the data center April 24th, before the county commission held a single public meeting. They also handed the developer a 92% cut on the standard energy tax while they were at it.

The county commissioners, taking the heat now, were also surprised. The commission chair said they were “brought in at the last hour.” One commissioner explained his yes vote plainly: without it, the project could proceed anyway, and at least this way the county gets a seat at the table. “All my vote did,” he said, “is maybe slow things down, maybe make things follow rules better.”

We’ve seen Salt Lake County and City mayors echo the same sort of sentiment when dealing with the legislature. It’s better to be in the room than to be locked out entirely.

The thing is, this isn’t MIDA’s first move. Under the same authority and the same board chair, the entity issued more than $600 million in public bonds to more than double a luxury ski resort at Deer Valley from 2021-2024. The military justification was 100 discounted hotel rooms for service members at the Grand Hyatt.

One hundred rooms. Six hundred million dollars. You can see the math, and it isn’t benefitting our military.

Add to it that MIDA’s board is chaired by none other than Utah Senate President Stuart Adams. That’s the same Stuart Adams who helps appoint MIDA’s members, and who chairs the legislature that created and expanded MIDA’s authority in the ‘24 and ‘25 legislative sessions. Are you seeing a pattern yet?

We can keep going. Seven days after the Stratos data center approval, five entities with MIDA-connected projects made donations totaling $135,000 to his political PAC. The five largest donations in its six-year history. Together they nearly doubled the PAC’s existing cash on hand. Make of that what you will, but these 5 donors probably deserve some community ire. Oh, and President Adams is in a primary election right now, Northern Utah.

This isn’t just happening in Utah though.

In Michigan, Governor Gretchen Whitmer personally courted OpenAI for a data center site in February 2025, months before the town of Saline Township knew a proposal was coming. When residents did find out, they showed up. Their planning commission voted no. Their township board voted 4-1 against it, but two days later, the developer sued. The township’s own lawyers advised them they’d probably lose, and construction began.

After that happened, rural Michigan communities took note. At least 19 municipalities enacted moratoriums on new data center development. They stopped waiting for the meeting, and started acting before it was even scheduled.

Which brings us back to the question, what does it actually take to interrupt a machine like this?

Unfortunately, it’s obviously not the public comment meetings, as we’ve established. Whether in a red or blue state, those in power are using the same blueprints.

But Utah residents were pretty clever here. Nearly 4,000 people filled out a form, paid $15, and formally submitted a water rights protest in relation to the project, using a legal mechanism most people hadn’t heard of three weeks ago.

And it worked, for now. The developer withdrew the application, wiped the slate clean, but is likely to resubmit in a few months with ‘more details’. When they resubmit though, those water rights protests will need to be filed all over again.

What we’re learning is that we can’t demand accountability by going through the front door and taking traditional political actions like showing up at meetings, writing to your elected officials, or leaving a too-long voicemail. We need to be looking for the loopholes they forget to close. The water rights process is one example.

MIDA reform is another, and Republican lawmakers are actually talking about doing it (though most of them voted for its expansion last year, so we aren’t holding our breath).

The political machine counts on you getting tired and staying home after one loud meeting. The Box Elder protest showed that when we look for the loopholes - the small, unglamorous rules like water rights applications - we can actually move the needle. Pull up a stool, stay curious, and don’t let them tell you to ‘grow up’ for asking where the water went.

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Nearly half of Utah women say they don’t know how to get civically involved if they wanted to, according to the Utah Women & Leadership Project, a Utah State University research initiative that has spent years tracking the gender gap in everything from workplace equity to political representation.

“Don’t know how” is doing a lot of work in that sentence. Because the no-s**t response is just Google it. There are a million organizations and causes actively begging for your time and money.

The barrier, however, isn’t information. It’s not even really opportunity. But it is time.

Between the birthday party, that school thing, sports Saturdays, or carpools across town, you find yourself asking “What can I fit in?” and “Do I even have the bandwidth to add another appointment to the calendar?”

There was a brief but shiny moment where social media acted as a gap for the overly scheduled millennial looking to be civically engaged. You could pop off a Tweet in fifteen minutes, feel like you’d done something, maybe even reach someone.

But ‘the algorithm’ had other ideas. It turned our feeds into a digital high school cafeteria where everyone is either performing or being punished. Your friends morphed into influencers siloed into echo chambers, engagement got weaponized, and the ratio became its own form of punishment. Shouting into the void stopped feeling like participation and started feeling like performance. (And we wonder why Gen Z isn’t spontaneous anymore?)

So that window has mostly closed, and busy women find themselves wondering where they can be impactful. What can you accomplish for the greater good that doesn’t require adding to your already stuffed calendar? And why is it always something that sounds like a slog? Run for office. Join a board or commission. Attend your caucus. Apply for a committee seat.

It’s a fine list if you have the time, the network, and the confidence that anyone will take you seriously when you show up. For everyone else? It lands like a joke.

This wasn’t always the case. Historically, men had the social club, the union hall, or the lodge, explicit civic spaces where political talk was expected and encouraged. Women had the kitchen table.

Before women had the vote, they built their political power in informal spaces like the weekly knitting circle, or church meeting. The women’s club movement of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries ran on parlor meetings and church auxiliaries and temperance circles. Out of those meetings came kindergartens, juvenile courts, public libraries, food safety laws, and eventually suffrage itself. The kitchen table was a serious political venue. It just didn’t look like one.

Then women entered the workforce, and that ultimately meant less time for the club meeting, less availability for the Tuesday afternoon auxiliary, and a quiet collapse of the informal civic infrastructure women had built around domestic life.

Women gained economic power but quietly lost their core organizing model. And somewhere in that transition, politics at the dinner table became impolite. The edict was keep it off the table, don’t make it weird, save it for… when exactly? The formal avenues that require time and access and a Tuesday night you don’t have?

The most durable organizing has always been relational though. Someone you already trust, in a room you’re already in, asking you directly about something you both actually care about.

So if we’ve lost social media to the noise, and we’ve lost our time to the grind, where do women actually go to be more civically engaged? The answer is more powerful than a board seat or a committee assignment. You just have to stop self-editing at the birthday party and start trusting that the conversation at the kitchen counter is exactly where the power is.

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It’s time to celebrate a significant win for everyone who believes The People should have the final say in how our state is run. If you’ve been following the news between school drop-offs or during your lunch break, you might have seen the headlines about Proposition 4. The attempt to repeal this law is officially dead. This is a massive deal because it means the voting maps will stay as they are currently drawn for the 2026 cycle.

The effort to repeal the anti-gerrymandering law officially failed after the Republican backed effort could not gather enough signatures in enough districts to qualify for the ballot, despite having enough overall signatures. This marks a turning point for the Republican legislature. They have built a labyrinth of rules to make it nearly impossible for citizens to pass laws at the ballot box, but this time, they got lost in their own maze. They couldn’t get their neighbors to sign on, and honestly? It’s a little embarrassing for them.

It’s hard not to see this effort as a power struggle between The People and their elected representatives. Nearly two-thirds of Utahns support Proposition 4 in January polling. People across the political spectrum generally agree that we want fair maps and that politicians should not be picking their own voters.

For a long time, the Legislature has had total control over the redistricting process, and now that they are being held accountable by the citizens, they are not handling it with much grace. They have spent a lot of time and energy trying to circumvent the will of the people, behaving as though the voters made a mistake by enforcing transparency.

And this energy goes all the way to the top. While we’re celebrating here in Utah, there’s a shadow being cast from D.C. The Supreme Court is starting to look at voting maps with a bit of a side-eye of their own. Causing waves amongst mid decade redistricting efforts. As a note, hours after the Supreme Court struck down parts of the voting rights act, Florida and Louisiana rushed to redraw their maps.

This national shift matters because our own Legislature has spent the last eight years treating redistricting like a personal grievance, convinced the maps aren’t doing them enough favors. While race isn’t the primary driver in our local fight, the Supreme Court is essentially handing out a roadmap for how politicians can challenge the rules while the game is still being played. Justice Thomas even hinted that the court should go further in limiting voter protections, signaling a pathway for lawmakers to ignore public input and making it harder for citizens to defend the initiatives they pass at the ballot box. It creates a massive cloud of uncertainty for our independent commission and gives the party in power a fresh set of excuses to disregard the maps we helped draw.

Even if the 2026 door is likely closed for redrawing Utah’s maps, the table is now being set for a long-term fight. The Legislature seems perfectly willing to spend our taxpayer money on legal battles between the judicial and legislative branches rather than just following the law that the people voted for. When the government is busy fighting itself in court, the public is the loser.

The failure of the Proposition 4 repeal is a win for accountability, but the struggle for the soul of our state is still very much alive. We can choose to move forward with a focus on fairness and the future of our kids, or we can stay stuck in this cycle of legislative tantrums. After all, our counters are already full enough with kids’ homework and half-finished coffee, we really don’t have room for any more political drama.

We have a very important opportunity to decide what kind of leadership we want in our state. The primary election on June 23, 2026, is going to be a turning point and frankly, a chance to decide if we want to keep paying for the Legislature’s legal hobbies.

If we want a state that values the kitchen-counter conversation over the backroom deal, we have to be the ones to vote for it.

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The last time Ben McAdams held a congressional seat, he was walking a tightrope every single day. In a race he won by just 694 votes, the hold he had on his seat was tenuous at best. And, voting for Trump’s impeachment, ultimately cost him his reelection.

But after dramatic conventions on both sides of the aisle this weekend, November is less of a concern for Ben this time around, than June is. Where he once had to ‘out moderate’ the moderate, he’s now the establishment candidate in a crowded group of progressives.

It’s a wild thought. In Utah, for probably the first time ever, the Democratic primary will most likely decide who goes to Washington, not the November ballot.

When the maps were redrawn, Utah finally got a Democratic hold centered on the capitol city. By tucking most of the blue-leaning neighborhoods into the new Congressional District (CD-1), they created what’s known as a “safe seat.” It’s an island of blue in a sea of red. Kamala Harris would have carried this district by 24 points in 2024. Cook Political currently has the race listed as solid Dem, and the Republican running in CD-1, more or less conceded the race in his own nomination acceptance speech at convention. So if November is settled, what does that mean for the primary on June 23rd?

It means the primaries are the election. Whoever wins the four-way race between Liban Mohamed, Ben McAdams, Nate Blouin, and Michael Farrell is almost certainly winning a seat in Congress. And it’s the same for Republicans with Phil Lyman vs. Celeste Maloy in CD-3, and Karianne Lisonbee vs. Blake Moore in CD-2.

(Remember when we told you to look out for more dirt? This is why. The other progressive in the race was knocked out at convention after a story broke about her unwanted sexual advances on other female lawmakers and campaign staff.)

You can think of CD-1 (and CD-2 & CD-3) like a neighborhood where 60% of the houses already have a blue porch light on. It doesn’t matter how hard the person with the red porch light campaigns; the math is baked into the street map. The only real question left is which shade of blue the neighborhood wants. Because, unlike convention, there’s no ranked choice voting in the primary. Whoever gets the most votes wins.

What we’re saying is that three out of four of the congressional district races are likely to be fully done and dusted by June 23, 2026. And, candidly, CD-4 is very likely to be decided in favor of Mike Kennedy over Johnny Larsen with Cook Political rating the district R+17 and solid R.

Primaries are where the hyper-informed and the hyper-partisan show up, and almost nobody else. And it’s how someone whose entire platform is grievance could end up in Congress. When the primary is the election, staying home is essentially handing your ballot to the neighbor who posts the most on Nextdoor and saying, “You choose for me.”

Right now, candidates are spending all of their time knocking on doors, making phone calls, and sending out informational mailers. If you ever wanted to bend their ear or ask questions, now is your time to shine.

We’re all busy navigating the squeeze of $4 gas and summer camp sign-ups, but this is one of those rare moments where the machine is exposed and you can actually move the gears.

Voting on June 23rd isn’t just about cleaning the kitchen counter, it’s about making sure the person we send to Washington actually understands what’s happening at our kitchen counters. Now’s the time to do your research and decide.

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I’ve worked in politics for over 10 years and there are always some constants. One of those is front and center this week in the one-two punch of Nate Blouin’s inflammatory online comments and Trevor Lee’s fraudulent check scandal.

I now work in media and communications and as a public relations specialist, it’s clear to me that these two things have not been accidentally dropped onto the public’s head. They were intentional “leaks” that are actually well timed and deeply researched, planned pieces of placed media. In short, they’re stories gift-wrapped for reporters by campaigns or those aligned with candidates.

A reality about politics is that it’s a bare knuckle fight. Anything and everything you’ve ever done is up for review and since you’re attempting to enter the public domain as a public figure, people are going to inevitably spend time and money looking into your past.

I ran for City Council in 2023 and two years later got a text from someone who worked on my oppositions’ campaign. I was surprised when they wished me a happy birthday. Now, I know that doesn’t seem like something weird on the face of it - but the reality is that I’ve seen this person a handful of times and not even my own brother remembers my birthday. That this person went so far as to write my birthday down and reach out to me when they never had before felt, frankly, a little creepy.

But - this is the job. When you run for office, your entire life gets scrutinized. That dance video your college made when you were young gets raked over the coals, allegedly stealing $5 million dollars in COVID 19 relief gets outed at some point in your political career, and when your congressional staffer accuses you of sexual misconduct you are forced to face the music despite being in the lead for the Governor’s mansion.

Some people, like President Trump, deflect and carry on when found guilty of sexual abuse and defamation. Some people are driven out of politics for an overly enthusiastic scream. In the end, it seems to boil down to just one thing - how long can you hang on before the media cycle ends and people move on? Or another way to think about it - how much pain and online punishment are you willing to suffer for either your ideals or your ego?

Both of these candidates seem prepared for it, but it’s noteworthy that both Trevor Lee’s alleged abuse of power and acknowledged check fraud dropped at the same time as Nate Blouin’s discovered past of crude and derogatory comments in online forums. What’s happening here is that the Democratic and Republican state conventions are happening in 8 days.

For Lee, this moment is more urgent than for Blouin. Lee hasn’t gathered signatures so he has to win over the delegates. If his opponent gets 60% of the vote, Lee is done. No primary. No second chances. Nate Blouin, though, did spend his time gathering signatures and is already on the primary ballot. Short of dropping out of the race himself, no one can prevent him from advancing to the primary election in June.

Blouin has stated that he is not leaving the race for Congressional District 1 and the state convention results for him will not affect his ability to move forward to the primary election, even if McAdams is able to secure the magic 55% of the delegate vote at convention.

As CityCastSLC put it during their Friday podcast “...if they [voters] want what Senator Blouin is putting forward, I don’t know how much it impacts things. Yeah, I think if you knocked the average person’s door and brought this up with them, they would be like, I don’t know what you were talking about, but it says no soliciting on my door.” and, honestly? That’s a pretty good point. For the average voter, this scandal won’t move the needle, if they even caught the news between carpools.

So what’s the point of these oppo drops beyond stirring things up ahead of convention?

Well, if I were advising these campaigns I would first find some opposition research (oppo) that is juicy, but not my biggest fire power and I would leak it right now before state convention to get the delegates mad, because as a reminder, delegates are the diehards of any political party. They show up on Saturdays, volunteer, make calls, and pay really close attention to the political swings. They are the lifeblood of any political party and they are the only ones allowed to vote during convention. So right now, they hold a lot of power, especially in Lee’s case.

Next, I would reserve my bigger piece of oppo and I would drop it on the public 7-10 days before ballots go out to the primary voters. And then, I’d send a paid mailer that lands on people’s doorsteps 1-3 days before they receive their ballots in the mail. That way, any candidate controversy is conflated in their minds because they kind of remember that thing from a few months ago and are now also refreshed with a bigger controversy when their ballots are sitting on the counter.

So - do you think there’s more oppo coming for Senator Blouin? What about for any of the other Congressional District 1 candidates? Or state candidates? Leave us a comment below and mark this moment - for more dirt is surely coming.

Whoops. We Got This Wrong:

We said “What’s happening here is that the Democratic and Republican state conventions are happening in 8 days. For Lee, this moment is more urgent than for Blouin. Lee hasn’t gathered signatures so he has to win over the delegates. If his opponent gets 60% of the vote, Lee is done. No primary. No second chances.”

Lee actually faced his opponent at county convention, not state convention as we stipulated, and in the rules he actually only needed to hit a 40% vote threshold, not simply survive by preventing his opponent from reaching 60% of the vote as we implied.

This is our first correction, ever.

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Every politician in America right now is talking about it. Your Congressman’s talking about it. Your state senator’s talking about. Your city council member. Sometimes even Trump is talking about it (that is, when he’s not too busy attacking the Pope like he’s King Henry the 8th demanding a divorce, but we digress).

And they’re all promising to fix it. Every campaign website has some version of “committed to finding local solutions for affordable housing”.

But what does that actually mean? Genuinely. What does that actually look like? Because if every politician across the entire ideological spectrum has been committed to solving this problem for the last twenty years, but rents have roughly doubled in that same time period, something is missing. And, let’s be clear - if there was a magic wand solution to the affordable housing crisis, politicians would use it.

This isn’t entirely a new problem. But, as is the reality with most economic measures, housing affordability only became a “crisis” when the median-income family started feeling it. Because when you start messing with the middle class, systems fall apart. and our current housing system? It’s falling fast.

So what went wrong and how do we fix it?

Partially, this is a self inflicted wound. We all know the romanticized Post War America of the boomers.

And that image became so exalted, the ultimate signal of success, that those who built it, believed it needed protecting. And those protections got written into law in the form of zoning codes. Cities across the country locked in low-density development, large lot sizes, and parking requirements that make any other housing difficult to build unless it’s that picket fence dream, expensive, or outright illegal.

So, here we are. With “market rate” rent (aka the price that makes you gasp when you open Zillow) in Salt Lake somewhere between $1,500 and $2,000 a month depending on the unit, and a growing homelessness crisis that is straining city and state resources.

But before all that happened and housing was limited to that single family home with the white picket fence, we had boarding houses. What those zoning codes that locked in the American Dream house actually did, beyond just making it hard to build a duplex, is eliminate a housing option that had existed for most of American history.

Basically, In trying to protect a certain standard of housing, we made it harder to build anything at the lower end. But at a certain point, you have to ask what we’re actually protecting people from. Because moving someone from a low-cost room to no housing at all isn’t protection. It’s part of the problem.

Is it time to bring back the Boarding House?

At the peak of the boarding house era, somewhere between a third and half of all urban Americans either lived in one or ran one. And in the American west, where population booms happened faster than permanent housing could be built, boarding houses became the default solution. Places like Park City that had boom and bust economies based on mining.

And then, slowly, the solution became an entire system that was locked in place.

A single boarding house could hold a rotating mix of miners, railroad workers, widows, traveling salesmen, and for new arrivals it offered a foothold. Meals were shared, and as a result, news, job leads, and introductions were passed right alongside the bread.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, at the center of that system were women. Being a boarding house mistress was one of the few acceptable paths to financial independence in the late 19th century. (Probably another reason the system “had to go” but we digress, again…)

So why does that matter today?

We’ve obviously got a housing crisis. But we also have a constraint problem, and a rules problem, and that’s resulted in a system that has narrowed the range of what’s allowed to exist.

And increasingly, it means we have a community problem too. Because when you remove flexibility, shared spaces, and low cost entry points and information for new residents, you make it harder for people to find their place in a city at all.

Which is why changes to those rules matter. The Salt Lake City Council voted 6-1 in December 2025 to overhaul our zoning rules, eliminating lot width minimums and reducing parking requirements immediately in some parts of the city.

Is this going to change things overnight? No. But it’s a tangible step forward and a sign that we’re starting to change how housing looks again. We have friends and family who operate boarding houses, without knowing what they’re called. It’s the illegal basement apartment or the seven roommates sharing a bungalow in Sugar House because none of them can afford $1,800 for a studio. Let’s acknowledge the absurdity that our friends are technically “outlaws” just for trying to pay rent.

These types of boarding houses are the hearth and home, the safe zone, for recent grads, low income workers, and they help make ends meet for home owners. This type of shared communal housing isn’t for everyone, but it is a good option for some - and for some, it’s the only option. If we want to see a reduction in the number of unhoused people on our streets, bankruptcies, and strapped-for-cash families, might we recommend the Boarding House?

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Before you go any further in reading this, we want to be VERY clear about something. Utah is not a blue state. It is not going to be a blue state in 2026, 2028, or likely even 2030.

But shifts ARE happening here that are important, and the national media is almost catching on.

They noticed Utah didn’t swing hard for Trump in 2024, that LDS voters had the largest leftward shift of any religious group, and they’re noticing the Prop 4 battle (but, unfortunately, still lumping us in with California and Texas and painting it as a partisan play when it’s really not).

What they keep missing is the why. And the answer is, it’s because of Utah women.

We’ve been watching the data, and BYU professor Jake Rugh has confirmed what we’re all seeing at our neighborhood playgroups: Utah men are THREE TIMES MORE LIKELY to stick with the MAGA brand than the women who recoiled from Trump in 2016 and are never, ever getting back together with MAGA. And the numbers against Trump in Utah are only growing.

So the data shows you the pattern, but it doesn’t fully explain what’s happening behind the scenes. Mercifully, you don’t have to be LDS to understand what’s happening here. Whatever values Utah women hold, whatever their faith or background, the MAGA brand of politics is not one we are shopping for.

Let’s add a little historical context, because Utah has always had a complicated relationship with women’s power. We were the first state to recognize it and we’ve been coasting on that 1870 headline ever since as proof we’re pro-women.

WalletHub has had something different to say about that for the past 8 years, placing Utah in 50th position for Women’s Rights again in 2026.

The reality is, Utah has always had this unresolved tension between the myth of women’s power here and the reality of it. So that makes what’s happening right now so ‘remarkable’, to quote Professor Rugh, is that women on both sides of the aisle are deciding the gap between the myth and the reality doesn’t fly anymore.

Polling from 2025 puts Trump’s net approval among Utah women at 14 points underwater. This gender gap has shown up consistently across every cycle since 2016, and it’s only growing.

The Salt Lake Tribune reported that a February 2026 poll found that 58% of Utah LDS voters say they’d vote for Trump today. That’s already 10 points lower than those who actually colored in the bubble for him in 2024. That’s a lot of quietly conflicted voters. Think about your ward or your neighborhood. If 10% of the people who were Team Trump in 2024 are now saying ‘I’m out,’ that’s not just a statistic. That’s the sister who usually handles the funeral potatoes deciding she’s done being told to follow the rules by men who keep breaking them.

If the data shows us that Utah women are looking for a different kind of leadership, the current primary showdown between Congressman Blake Moore and state Rep. Karianne Lisonbee is where that rubber finally hits the road. We’re seeing a bit of a Republican neighborhood feud following the Prop 4 victory. Lisonbee is trying to blame Moore for the courts stepping in, but that’s like blaming your neighbor for the HOA fine you got after you ignored the rules for eight years. The courts didn’t step in because of Moore; they stepped in because the Legislature thought they could override Utah voters and get away with it.

Moore says he still believes in an independent advisory commission and that the legislature has constitutional authority over maps. He’s been consistent to the point of stubbornness, which in any other era of Republican politics might even be considered a virtue.

There’s a certain irony in how this fight has played out. The legislature made it incredibly difficult to get an initiative on the ballot through the signature process. And then remarkably easy to remove signatures from one.

They designed those rules when they assumed they’d always be on offense. It never occurred to them they’d need those rules to cut the other way.

And here’s the part Lisonbee really can’t say out loud: the constituents she’s trying to appeal to in this primary, conservative women in Utah, are the same women showing up in the data, cycle after cycle, moving away from exactly what she represents.

She’s not just running against Blake Moore. She’s running against the 10% of LDS voters who are quietly checking a different box because they’re tired of the drama. Utah women didn’t change their values. The Republican Party changed what it was asking them to accept.

We’re still the same women who show up with the casseroles and organize the PTA, and it turns out, Utah women have a pretty long memory, a low tolerance for being underestimated, and, as the legislature just found out the hard way, a sophisticated understanding of how the rules work.

The national media might be looking for a ‘blue wave,’ but they’re looking for the wrong color. What’s happening here is more like a family meeting where the women have finally decided to stop sitting at the kids’ table. We know exactly how the rules work. And we aren’t going anywhere.

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