It is becoming increasingly clear that Donald Trump will be the Republican party nominee for president this year. This creates a massive opportunity for Utahns, during this same election cycle, to vote for a new U.S. Senator, who should be someone who truly represents We The People.
Utah deserves a strong leader who is willing to work with President Trump to prioritize the needs of Americans. We truly deserve something better than the constant bickering and blame-shifting coming from within our own party. The problems facing our nation are too dire for the divisions that have marked the last six years.
As the Lankford-Schumer “bipartisan” border bill falls apart in Congress, Mitt Romney is quick to blame Trump for wanting to keep the border problem alive rather than assume there might be a possibility that the deal is just awful. Of course, the effort to shift fault seems to be emanating from the same media sources that touted the now-debunked Russia hoax.
Maybe it’s clear this border bill does virtually nothing to slow down the invasion, but rather just funds the facilitation of it. Trump knows he’s capable of negotiating something much more beneficial for the American people than this do-nothing border bill.
Romney told Iowan voters who supported Trump that they were “out of touch,” which is pure projection. This is the same man who changes out his multimillion dollar mansions on the regular and who installed a car elevator inside his oceanfront home in LaJolla, California.
Yet Trump, despite his vast wealth, seems to have a much better handle on the realities of life for regular people. While working for Sen. Mike Lee in Utah, I had constant conversations with workers whose jobs were tied to mining. Near the end of Trump’s term they expressed frequent concern that if he lost in 2020, their livelihood would be destroyed. They understood that our energy security, and the jobs that provide it, could all be wiped away by government decree if the wrong guy ended up in the oval office. Elections matter.
Trump often says things people don’t like, and has sent out some mean tweets. But he also secured our border, cut taxes, and prevented wars. He was working toward major reform of the administrative state that was fighting him all the way. Under his leadership, eight regulations were eliminated for every one new regulation adopted.
Meanwhile, Romney touts as one of his great accomplishments a bill that brought us a commission to study wildfire and its solutions. In my years talking to local and state officials attempting to mitigate the real threat of wildfire, the number one complaint I heard was that the government was tying the hands of land managers and not allowing the type of maintenance that would reduce wildfire risk. But the best Romney could do for Utahns was a worthless commission.
Utahns have had it with establishment politicians who go back to Washington to serve themselves instead of the American people. Our country can’t afford much more of this. And we cannot send another Romney to the Senate.
When Donald Trump returns to the White House in Jan. 2025, he deserves to have not just one strong ally from Utah in the U.S. Senate, but two. That’s why I’m running.
In this Senate race, voters are going to have to look beyond the slick, shiny surface of the candidates. For too long we’ve permitted a massive disconnect between what many of our elected officials say on the campaign trail and what they do once they’re out of sight.
Utah is unique, and it’s unique because of who we are. It’s unique because of our culture, our beliefs, and our values. Politicians always say they’re going to take Utah values back to Washington but all too often, once they’re there they become just like everybody else, cutting deals to curry favor with leadership and “get things done.”
We need to know when we send someone back to Washington to represent us that they will put our interests ahead of their own. We deserve to know that they will work with President Trump and use their influence to represent the very best of who we are as Utahns and Americans.
And we deserve to be confident that they will leave our country better than the mess Biden has made of things.
Carolyn Phippen is a candidate for Utah’s U.S. Senate seat currently held by Mitt Romney. She is a wife and a mother of five boys and a former staffer to Sen. Mike Lee. She resides in Draper, Utah.
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the Daily Caller.