Democrats are capitalizing on the righteous anger sparked by Utah Sen. Mike Lee’s recent social media posts, aiming to do the unthinkable and flip the state at the next election.
Lee has made some unsavory choices on social media—leaning heavily into MAGA conspiracy edge-posting—but none have caught the attention of the country or the ire of voters in Utah quite like the posts he made hours after the assassinations of Rep. Melissa Hortman and her husband.
“This is what happens when Marxists don’t get their way,” Lee tweeted alongside a picture of Vance Boelter, the suspected gunman, at Hortman’s door.
Lee’s tweets kicked off an immediate firestorm. The Daily Show host Jon Stewart spent much of his opening monologue on Monday’s episode tearing into Lee’s “depravity,” while MSNBC host Lawrence O’Donnell described him as a “disgrace” and a top Utah Senate aide called Lee’s behavior “unconscionable.” Many more have shared their disgust with Lee’s words.
The Republican senator has quietly deleted the tweets but has yet to apologize for them.
Video of Lee fleeing in silence as an NBC journalist tried to question him about his actions emerged this week but it appears that, no matter how quickly he runs, Lee can’t escape the fury.
Democrat Senators in Utah have said that their inboxes have been flooded with emails from constituents who want Lee removed from the seat he has held since 2011.
“I think [Lee’s tweets about the shootings] really broke something open in Utah,” Gabi Finlayson, co-founder of a Democratic consultancy in Utah told The Bulwark. “There certainly is a lot more urgency. The idea that we truly have to get him out of office is no longer a theoretical thing or just a liberal idea. It is a moral imperative.”
Despite the outrage, unseating Lee is a decidedly uphill battle. The senator is not up for re-election until 2028, and Utah has not had a Democrat Senator since the 1970s. Trump won the state by 20 percent in 2024.
“We’re not going to win with a Democrat right now in Utah at a statewide level,” State Sen. Nate Blouin said. “It is not going to happen. I love the optimism, but it is not a reality. We’ve got a lot of work to do on the ground level to convince people that Democrats aren’t, you know, demons and eating babies trying to make everyone have an abortion.”
Blouin argued that an independent—or someone not strongly affiliated with the Democrats—would potentially have a stronger chance but it would depend on how far voters in the Republican-but-not-MAGA-loving state shift away from Trump before the next election.
“The people better be watching,” The View host Sara Haines said recently. “It’s a minute, it’s like 2028, but be on the ground right now and coordinate how you replace people like this, that can speak that way about other Americans.”
