Utah Gov. Cox says 2024 election results weren’t just about inflation

Utah Gov. Spencer Cox reiterated his belief that the 2024 election was like an “earthquake” because of the realignment of voters between the Republican and Democratic parties.
Cox made the comments during a meeting Wednesday with the editorial boards of the Deseret News and KSL. He had earlier given the same assessment at a University of Virginia event in November.
Republicans won a trifecta in the recent elections, capturing control of the presidency, U.S. House and U.S. Senate by narrow margins.
But the “razor-thin” margins aren’t the whole story, Cox said.
“I do think this was an earthquake election, not because of the margins necessarily, but because of who voted and how they voted,“ he said. “It wasn’t what we all thought it was going to be. It wasn’t just men voting one way or women voting another way. What you saw was — especially demographically — the way we’ve looked at the world over the past 30 years, maybe longer did not hold true this time.”
Cox pointed to how President-elect Donald Trump made large gains with Black and Latino voters, “in a way that surprised a lot of people.”
“And that realignment that I do think was happening out there, I think we’ve seen it happening for a long time,” he said.
Cox said he predicted the outcome, telling friends ahead of the November election he thought Trump would win Pennsylvania and either Michigan or Wisconsin. Trump ended up winning all seven swing states, including the three Cox mentioned as well as North Carolina, Georgia, Nevada and Arizona.
The reason Cox thought Trump would win the “blue wall” states is because of his ability to speak to blue collar workers. President Joe Biden also had that ability, he said.
“He could speak the language of middle America, blue collar Americans,” Cox said of Biden.
“I just didn’t think that a liberal from California could speak their language and could bring them in, and it turned out that that was the case,” he said of Kamala Harris, who replaced Biden and represented the Democratic Party against Trump.
But, he said, he was surprised about the demographic shift that took place among voters. He wondered if Democrats had learned anything from this election, and said he did think there are some who are asking “really hard questions,” especially Democratic governors.
Democrats have a deep bench, he said, praising the governors he’s worked with across the aisle.
“There are a lot of really great governors out there who are Democrats right now, who do appeal to a different part of America. Obviously, I like Republicans and so I’m hoping we’ve learned some lessons too, from that election,” he said.
Those who want to explain the election results away by blaming inflation aren’t telling the whole story, he said.
The governor is poised to release his Fiscal Year 2026 budget Thursday morning.