1980 Utah gubernatorial election
election
The 1980 Utah gubernatorial election was held on November 4, 1980. Democratic incumbent Scott M. Matheson defeated Republican nominee Bob Wright with 55.16% of the vote. As of 2025, this is the last time a Democrat was elected Governor of Utah; since Matheson left office in 1985, all of Utah's governors have been Republican. In fact, Democrats, save in the "asterisk election" of 1988 featuring a Republican running as an Independent, have not even had a close call during that time; coming no closer in a strict two-candidate race than Matheson's Scott Jr. losing by more than sixteen points in 2004. Matheson's victory was despite Republican presidential candidate Ronald Reagan and incumbent Republican Senator Jake Garn both winning over 72% of the vote in their respective races on the same ballot.
Primary election
Primary elections were held on September 9, 1980.
Democratic primary
Incumbent governor Scott M. Matheson was renominated without opposition.
Republican primary
Bob Wright, former Chair of the Utah Republican Party, was nominated without opposition.
“1980 Utah gubernatorial election” enters the record as election. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Utah, gubernatorial and election can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Chronology, provenance and viewpoint should be read together before a broad social or political interpretation is accepted. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 12, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q96333308. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1980, 2025, 1985 and 1988.
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This entry incorporates text from “1980 Utah gubernatorial election” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.