Trump-backed Senate candidate loses bid for Romney seat

By Eric Bradner, CNN

(CNN) — Utah Rep. John Curtis won the state’s Republican Senate primary, overcoming a challenger backed by Donald Trump in the race to succeed retiring GOP Sen. Mitt Romney.

Curtis, 64, won a four-way primary that included Riverton Mayor Trent Staggs, who had the backing of the former president and the state Republican Party. Curtis will be heavily favored in the November general election in the deep-red state that last elected a Democrat to the US Senate in 1970.

Though anti-Trump Republicans are losing a standard-bearer in Romney, Curtis has also kept the former president at arm’s length in a state that, while heavily Republican, has not  always rewarded the most strident conservative candidates in GOP primaries. Curtis did not back Trump during this year’s Republican presidential primary – though he did largely vote with the former president during Trump’s term in office.

The founder and chairman of the Conservative Climate Caucus in Washington, Curtis regularly hosts what he has called “hiking town hall” events at which he invites voters to chat with him while he plays tour guide through some of the state’s most scenic spots.

Trump announced his support for Staggs in April, hours before the mayor qualified for the primary ballot by defeating Curtis at the state party convention. Such gatherings tend to be dominated by party hard-liners, and winners haven’t always found success in primaries, which attract a broader swath of Republican voters. (Curtis qualified for the primary ballot by turning in enough signatures.)

Staggs, who highlighted his opposition to Covid-19 measures as mayor of Riverton, a suburb of Salt Lake City, posted a video on social media last week in which the former president called him “a fantastic person running for the seat of one of the worst senators in the history of the Republican Party, Mitt Romney.”

Still, in the video, Trump acknowledged that Staggs was “a little bit of a long shot.”

Curtis was first elected to Congress in 2017, winning a special election to succeed Republican former Rep. Jason Chaffetz. He previously served as mayor of Provo, the state’s fourth most populous city.

This story has been updated with additional developments.

CNN’s Andrew Menezes contributed to this report.

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