Special Session with Bryan Schott

Salt Lake County Republican Party Chairman Mike Carey joins the show to assess the blue wave that hit Utah on election night, when legislative districts shifted roughly 17 points toward Democrats across the board. Carey says national issues trickled all the way down the ballot, and the local party had its own problems that it "paid for with some significant losses." He also says Utah lawmakers have catered to the donor class and stopped listening to constituents. __________ Hit the subscribe button to stay up-to-date on the latest Utah political news. 📰 For more Utah political coverage, go to UtahPolitics.news Sponsor the show. Email [email protected]. Follow us on social media: Bluesky TikTok Instagram Facebook Threads X/Twitter LinkedIn

Reed Galen, a founder of the Lincoln Project, joins the show to explain what message voters delivered on Election Day last week and what comes next. Galen argues that Donald Trump has been “the alpha and the omega” of American life for 11 years. He says the tariffs and the Iran war were Trump’s personal choices, and they drove up costs faster than anything else. He also says the Democrats who won, including the “moderates,” ran on economic populism, with cost of living, AI and data centers at the top of the list. Galen reads Utah's election results as a rebuke of a Legislature that he says operates like a "dictatorship." He points to Stuart Adams’ loss, to public lands and data center fights, and to the old small-c conservative instinct for local control. Links: Civic Forum The Home Front   __________ Hit the subscribe button to stay up-to-date on the latest Utah political news. 📰 For more Utah political coverage, go to UtahPolitics.news Sponsor the show. Email [email protected]. Follow us on social media: Bluesky TikTok Instagram Facebook Threads X/Twitter LinkedIn

One week. That’s all that stands between us and the end of the 2026 midterms. But before we get there, there’s plenty to dig into. Early ballot data shows Utah Democrats are mailing theirs back at a much higher rate than anyone else, while independents are sitting on theirs. The race for the next Senate president is reportedly deadlocked 11-11, and it could come down to a single Senate seat, plus a little parliamentary trick that would let Democrats pick the winner if they had the guts to use it. I’ll also explain why that “independent voter surge” story you saw last week isn’t quite what it seems, walk you through a federal judge tossing the DOJ’s grab for Utah’s voter rolls, and follow the money behind some recycled anti-trans mailers and a pile of Wyoming cash flooding Utah legislative races. __________ Hit the subscribe button to stay up-to-date on the latest Utah political news. 📰 For more Utah political coverage, go to UtahPolitics.news Sponsor the show. Email [email protected]. Follow us on social media: Bluesky TikTok Instagram Facebook Threads X/Twitter LinkedIn

On this episode: Host Bryan Schott breaks down what Amendment B really does: it would require 60% voter approval for any citizen initiative that raises taxes. He explains how it pairs with SB 73, a 2025 law that could make it so any citizen's ballot initiative would have to raise taxes.   He also unveils his updated race ratings for the Utah House showing late Republican spending in seats that shouldn’t be competitive. He maps the narrow path Democrats now have to breaking the GOP supermajority in the Utah House, a path that didn’t exist this summer. __________ Hit the subscribe button to stay up-to-date on the latest Utah political news. 📰 For more Utah political coverage, go to UtahPolitics.news Sponsor the show. Email [email protected]. Follow us on social media: Bluesky TikTok Instagram Facebook Threads X/Twitter LinkedIn

Rep. Celeste Maloy and Democrat Kent Udell met at Utah Tech University in St. George for the only televised debate in Utah's new 3rd Congressional District, and Bryan Schott watched along live with commentary, fact-checks and viewer reactions. The verdict? Boring. Maloy, the incumbent, only needed to avoid stumbling, and she did. She leaned on her voting record and some well-worn talking points. Udell landed a few zingers, including "billionaires playing Minecraft" with data centers and a sharp comeback on forest management. But he passed up clear chances to make his case against her, most notably on her role in the public lands sale provision. __________ Hit the subscribe button to stay up-to-date on the latest Utah political news. 📰 For more Utah political coverage, go to UtahPolitics.news Sponsor the show. Email [email protected]. Follow us on social media: Bluesky TikTok Instagram Facebook Threads X/Twitter LinkedIn

Utah finally has a competitive congressional race, and Tuesday night the two candidates met on the debate stage. Democrat Ben McAdams and Republican Riley Owen faced off at Salt Lake Community College in the Utah Debate Commission's 1st Congressional District debate. It was the first debate for the new Democratic-leaning seat created after a court threw out the Legislature's gerrymandered map. We watched it live, and this episode is the recording of that livestream. The debate was mostly polite. The two agreed on more than you'd expect from a Democrat and a Republican in 2026. But they split on tariffs, the national debt and the maps that created the district. In this episode: Where McAdams and Owen agreed, and whether those agreements will last past Election Day The redistricting fight, and why neither candidate could avoid it The AI super PAC and data centers Owen's pitch as a Gen Z Republican who breaks with Trump on trade, immigration and AI Who helped themselves Tuesday night, and who didn't __________ Hit the subscribe button to stay up-to-date on the latest Utah political news. 📰 For more Utah political coverage, go to UtahPolitics.news Sponsor the show. Email [email protected]. Follow us on social media: Bluesky TikTok Instagram Facebook Threads X/Twitter LinkedIn

In this episode: New Utah polling from Noble Predictive Insights Is a Democratic wave brewing ahead of November? How would a blue wave election impact Utah's legislative elections? Sen. John Curtis asks the Senate Judiciary Committee to investigate Donald Trump Jr.'s ties to a Russian oligarch Trump's press ban on CNN, MSNOW and Politico __________ Hit the subscribe button to stay up-to-date on the latest Utah political news. 📰 For more Utah political coverage, go to UtahPolitics.news Sponsor the show. Email [email protected]. Follow us on social media: Bluesky TikTok Instagram Facebook Threads X/Twitter LinkedIn

Drew Ballard is a classically trained pianist with a 6,500-song repertoire who spent over a decade performing in piano bars and has recently turned that same instinct for what makes a crowd sing along toward political parody. Known online as Druby.tunes, Drew produces biting takes on well-known songs aimed at corporate exploitation and government malfeasance in Utah. We talk about the leap from concert competitions to bar requests, the data center fight that pushed him into activism, his songwriting process, and what it's like being a leftist vegan atheist from a Mormon farm family in central Utah. Follow Drew on social media: @drewbie.tunes __________ Hit the subscribe button to stay up-to-date on the latest Utah political news. 📰 For more Utah political coverage, go to UtahPolitics.news Sponsor the show. Email [email protected]. Follow us on social media: Bluesky TikTok Instagram Facebook Threads X/Twitter LinkedIn

On this episode: Exclusive investigation: The Mormon Meteor 3. The state paid $20 million for the historic race car now displayed at the new Museum of Utah—$10 million from taxpayers, obtained via open records request. Gov. Spencer Cox's new book, Off Ramp: How to Be a Peacemaker in an Age of Contempt, arrived minutes before taping. Live unboxing and first reactions. Charlie Kirk, one year later.   __________ Hit the subscribe button to stay up-to-date on the latest Utah political news. 📰 For more Utah political coverage, go to UtahPolitics.news Sponsor the show. Email [email protected]. Follow us on social media: Bluesky TikTok Instagram Facebook Threads X/Twitter LinkedIn

One year after Charlie Kirk was shot and killed at Utah Valley University, host Bryan Schott sits down with journalist Jared Holt to unpack the battle over Kirk's legacy — and how it's been playing out very differently depending on who's telling the story. On one side: a sanitized, martyr-like version of Kirk pushed by Turning Point USA and Fox News. On the other: a mocking, AI-generated "Kirkification" meme culture that has spread across the internet, and a conspiracy-fueled counter-narrative led by Candace Owens that has put Turning Point on the defensive for most of the past year. Holt traces Kirk's evolution from a "watered-down," establishment-friendly college-campus conservative in the 2016 era to the harder-edged, immigration-focused figure—and MAGA "kingmaker"—he'd become by the time of his death, arguing that turning his assassination into a political weapon against the left was, in a sense, the most faithful tribute to what Kirk actually stood for. The two also discuss whether anyone (Jack Posobiec? Nick Fuentes?) can fill the vacuum Kirk left in a MAGA movement Holt describes as increasingly disjointed and without a clear center of gravity; how right-wing and conspiracy-minded audiences are approaching the Tyler Robinson murder trial differently; and what to watch for at this week's UVU memorial event, emceed by Glenn Beck. Jared Holt on Bluesky Posting Through It Podcast Open Measures   __________ Hit the subscribe button to stay up-to-date on the latest Utah political news. 📰 For more Utah political coverage, go to UtahPolitics.news Sponsor the show. Email [email protected]. Follow us on social media: Bluesky TikTok Instagram Facebook Threads X/Twitter LinkedIn