Four state school board incumbents in Utah faced opponents in the Republican Party primary election. How did they do?

Two of the four incumbent members of the Utah State Board of Education, all Republicans, appeared to lose their re-election bids in Tuesday’s primary election.

Incumbent Brent Strate, who ran to return the District 3 seat in parts of Davis and Weber counties, was defeated by Rod Hall, a youth pastor, who received about 55% of the vote, according to early election results and unofficial.

In the District 15 race, incumbent Kristan Norton trailed Republican challenger Joann Brinton, who won 65% of the vote in early returns. Brinton removed Norton, a first-term board member, from the primary ballot during the state Republican Party convention when she received 84.72% of the delegate vote. Norton collected enough signatures to appear on the primary ballot in District 15, which runs through southern Utah.

Brinton will face Utah Forward candidate Laura Johnson in the November general election.

In the closely watched District 10 race, incumbent Matt Hymas was leading GOP challenger Monica Bangerter Wilbur, who had bested Hymas at the state convention but did not win by enough of a margin to oust him from the primary election. Hymas received 54% of the primary vote in early results.

Hymas, serving his first term on the state school board, is an educator, administrator, coach and charter school superintendent.

One of Wilbur’s main supporters was District 9 state school board member Natalie Cline, who was eliminated on the primary ballot by Salt Lake County Republican Party delegates this spring.

Earlier this year, Cline posted a photo of a high school basketball player on social media that suggested the student was transgender. Despite numerous calls for her resignation and votes of censure from both the Utah Legislature and the Utah State Board of Education, Cline chose to remain in the District 9 race. She was defeated by Republican candidate Amanda Bollinger at the Salt County Republican Convention Lake.

Hymas will face Democratic candidate Deborah Gatrell in the general election race in District 10, which includes Tooele County, West Valley City and a swath of Utah County west of Utah Lake.

Several important and powerful Utahns contributed to Hymas’ campaign, among them state schools board vice chair Jennie Earl and business executive and philanthropist Gail Milleralong with leaders from the Utah House of Representatives and the Utah Senate.

In District 7, incumbent Molly Hart was ahead of GOP challenger Kris Kimball, taking 58% of the vote according to early results. Hart, a career educator, will face Democrat John Arthur, Utah’s 2021 Teacher of the Year, in the November election. The district’s boundaries include communities such as Sandy, Draper, Midvale and Cottonwood Heights.

In the District 13 race, incumbent Randy Boothe jumped to the lead over challenger Cari Bartholomew, earning 56% of the vote in early results. The district includes the southern portion of Utah County.

Meanwhile, first-term state school board member Christina Boggess, who represents District 8 on the board, challenged veteran Sen. Wayne Harper, R-Taylorsville, for a seat in Senate District 16. Harper, who has served in the Utah Legislature since 1997, received 60% of the vote, according to early, unofficial results.

Boggess was elected to the state school board in 2022, so her term on the board has not expired.

Prior to 2020, all candidates running for state school board ran as unaffiliated candidates. This was the second time that party candidates ran for state council.

In 2016, the Utah Legislature passed a statute that required partisan contests on state school boards. The statute was challenged in court, and in 2017, a 3rd District Court judge ruled that the law conflicted with the Utah Constitution. That decision was appealed to the Utah Supreme Court, where it was overturned in 2019, opening the way for candidates to run as partisan candidates. They can also run as unaffiliated candidates.