Republican Representative Blake Moore’s involvement in a successful anti-gerrymandering initiative helped launch his political career. This is now coming back to bite him.
Moore’s rapid rise to House GOP leadership through Utah politics began when he co-chaired a group that pushed a 2018 ballot measure to limit gerrymandering in the state. It began a long and unpredictable saga of redistricting that ended in Republican fury this year — on a court-ordered congressional map with a new safe blue seat located in Salt Lake City.
Republican efforts to overturn that map failed in late March. And some are blaming Moore and his involvement in Proposition 4, the 2018 ballot initiative.
“For a lot of Republicans like me who have served a long time and been in leadership, Proposition 4 is a slap in the face,” said Don Guimon, Davis County GOP chairman in Moore’s new district. “People are concerned, and I think we’ll see whether or not they hold Blake accountable.”
Moore’s role in this process is prompting a primary challenge and could potentially hinder his future hopes for statewide office, a sign of how dramatically the politics around map-drawing have changed over the past few years. Not long ago, anti-gerrymandering efforts were hardly a major campaign issue for voters. But the pressure of President Donald Trump’s mid-decade gerrymandering of 2025 and the fierce response from Democrats have awakened voters in both parties to the importance of the issue.
Now, Utah is an early testing ground for this new redistricting-driven politics.
“What’s the point of a leadership position when Blake makes it easier for Democrats to take the House?”. said former state Rep. Caryn Lisonby, who is running against Moore for the seat.
Lisonby and other political enemies have nicknamed Moore the “Salt Lake Blake”, indicating that he runs in the blue district they blame him for creating.
Moore seems set to dodge the primary challenge: an internal survey conducted by Moore’s team and Obtained by Politico A three-way contest shows the congressman dominating Lisonby and another challenger, Colton Hatch, by 47 percentage points. Moore claims support from Trump, President Mike Johnson and House Freedom Caucus founder Jim Jordan. But the fight could also be an opportunity for Moore’s potential future opponents — should he run for governor or the U.S. Senate in 2028.
Utah House Speaker Mike Schultz, who is widely seen as a candidate for governor in 2028, has come out supporting Lisonby and branding Moore as “not a conservative.” And while Senator Mike Lee (R-Utah) – who is up for re-election in 2028 – has not noticed his top adviser, himself Frequently attack Moore on social media.
“Salt Lake Blake had planned this upset all along,” said Dan Hauser, Lee’s chief strategist. Recently posted on. “His voters should tell him what they think of his ‘leadership’.”
Moore has largely shrugged off the attacks. “I’m no stranger to primaries,” Moore said in an interview with Politico. “I don’t think it’s any different (this year). It’s always another thing, an opportunistic thing, to try to put pressure on me.” Moore says fair representation, not Democratic House seats, was the original goal of the Better Boundaries initiative, and he condemns the judge’s ruling last year that established a blue district.
“I don’t support what the judge did,” Moore said. “They should have allowed the state legislature to exercise its constitutional authority to finalize the maps.”
That could be a tough message to sell at the state Republican Party convention on April 25, one of the routes candidates take to get on the primary ballot. Conservatives have dominated the conference for years, and Moore has historically struggled there: Before scoring a landslide victory in the summer primary, he had lost at the conference by double digits in each of his previous three election cycles. Anger over Proposition 4 could take opposition to a new level this year, exposing Moore to the ire of other establishment-leaning Republicans. Governor Spencer Cox and former senator mitt romney In recent years.
A former Foreign Service officer and management consultant at the State Department, Moore joined the anti-gerrymandering Better Boundaries initiative in 2017. one of the four co-chairs. group launched proposal 4 Establishing an independent redistricting advisory commission.
The ballot initiative passed. Two years later, Moore emerged victorious in a crowded primary election for the U.S. House seat vacated by retiring Representative Rob Bishop.
Meanwhile, redistricting litigation continued. Last year, District Judge Diana Gibson ruled that the GOP-controlled state legislature failed to follow Proposition 4 when it drew four safe Republican districts in the 2022 map. Gibson ultimately chose a different map, which includes a blue seat in Salt Lake County.
State Republicans launched an effort to put a Proposition 4 repeal vote on the ballot this November, which would give the state legislature the authority to redraw the maps for 2028. But despite Trump’s endorsement and Turning Point Action’s efforts, they failed to verify enough signatures to get the measure on the ballot, reducing its chances.
That failure means Republicans will lose a House seat not only in this election, but for the rest of the decade – which would anger Utah Republicans.
Tyler Boyer, the group’s COO, said Turning Point Action now plans to step up its state efforts to defeat Moore. “We blame Salt Lake Blake for this whole mess,” he said.
Moore calls for better limits now deviated from its original purpose. “There are a lot of left-leaning groups that are now looking at this as an opportunity to get a Democrat seat in Utah,” Moore said, emphasizing that his involvement was “always focused on the process.”
“The better precincts today are the ones that partner with liberal, progressive organizations whose mission is to defeat Republicans,” said Utah GOP Chairman Rob Axson, who is not endorsing Moore in the primary because of his chairmanship. “So any claims that Better Boundaries is a non-partisan, impartial, centrist entity are divorced from reality.”
Some Utahns want Moore to be more forceful in his condemnation. “Now is the time to step up and say, ‘This is a bad result and this is not what any of us intended,'” said a senior Utah Republican, requesting anonymity to openly discuss GOP sentiment in the state. “And the fact that that’s not happening is creating resentment that’s resulting in a backlash against Blake.”
Moore did not sign the repeal effort, saying that he would have preferred a constitutional amendment rather than a ballot initiative. When? Two of his House colleagues filed suit Moore did not join in preventing the new map from being implemented.
Despite not adding his signature to Proposition 4 repeal, Moore didCut a video about it, Saying that Better Boundaries and other affiliated groups should stop trying to remove the signs after the deadline has passed.
“The only reason he did this (the video) is to hide his role in his bid for re-election,” said Schultz, who endorsed Lisonby this month. “If anyone really cared, they would have put up a video like they were asked to do, and come out and help and be a part of the repeal of Proposition 4.”
Given the redistricting mess, Shultz cast doubt on Moore’s future aspirations. “There’s no way for Blake to win the Republican primary (for governor) after Utah lost a Republican seat in Congress,” he said.
The same conversation will arise if Moore runs for Lee’s Senate seat in 2028. Hauser, Lee’s Moore-critical adviser, said in a statement that Lee “always reserves the right to endorse candidates in races where there is a strong conservative running” but “has no current plans to get involved in any primary races in Utah.”
When asked if he was considering running for governor or U.S. Senate in 2028, Moore demurred. “I’m running in the primary for the 2nd District,” he said. “That’s what I’m focused on right now.” (Schultz, for his part, said he had “no idea I’m running for governor”: “It’s not anything I’m focused on right now.”)
That hasn’t stopped widespread speculation in the state about Moore’s future.
Former Utah Governor Gary Herbert said, “He’s a good Congressman, could be a good senator. He could be a good governor.” The attacks on him make sense in that context, Herbert said: “I can see someone who says, ‘I don’t want him to fight against me, because he would be a very good potential opponent.'”
Moore has received endorsements from a wide range of Utah politicians for this race, including Utah Senate President Stuart Adams and more than a dozen members of the state legislature. U.S. Senator John Curtis said he would support Moore if asked. “Blake has done a great job for the state and the district,” Curtis said.
Moore – who has his sights set on the chairmanship of the Budget Committee – expresses confidence in his political future.
“Having a member from Utah for the first time in leadership gives Utah a bigger voice,” Moore said. “I think most people see it as a positive. State legislators – who would tell me privately how wonderful it is – will try to create a different story, just because it might be fun for some people to do it politically.”
