UT-3 · House
election-day forecast · ground-up model · as of 2026-10-02
The district, in brief
Utah's 3rd is a new district for 2026, based in eastern and southern Utah. The text describes it as covering a majority of the state's counties and portions of Utah and Weber counties, including Cedar City, St. George, Provo, Price, Orem and Heber, as well as Brigham Young University. The text records that Donald Trump won the district by a 41-point margin in 2024. The seat's holder before the election is listed as Mike Kennedy, who is running in the 4th district.
The text calls Republican Celeste Maloy the incumbent; she was re-elected in the 2nd district with 58.0% of the vote in 2024. She won the Republican primary with 65.7% over Phil Lyman, a former state representative and 2024 candidate for governor, who took 34.3% after pushing her to a second convention round (50.95% to 49.05%). The Democratic nominee is Kent Udell, an engineer and cousin of former U.S. Interior Secretary Stewart Udall, who won the nomination at convention with 56.55% over Steve Merrill. As of June 3, 2026 Maloy had raised $1,177,361 with $256,062 on hand; Udell had raised $14,010 with $10,630 on hand.
Four raters call the seat R: Decision Desk HQ (July 14, 2026), the Cook Political Report, Inside Elections and Sabato's Crystal Ball (November 11, 2025); Silver Bulletin is listed (August 20, 2026) with no ranking shown. No poll is recorded.
A paragraph quoting a model forecast from the day this brief was written is omitted; the current forecast is at the top of this page.
The facts, each beside its sentence
The incumbent is Republican Celeste Maloy, who was re-elected in the 2nd district with 58.0% of the vote in 2024.
The incumbent is Republican Celeste Maloy
Kent Udell, engineer and cousin of former U.S. Interior Secretary Stewart Udall
Celeste Maloy, incumbent U.S. representative from the 2nd district
Kent Udell, engineer and cousin of former U.S. Interior Secretary Stewart Udall
Celeste Maloy, incumbent U.S. representative from the 2nd district
In the 2024 presidential election, Republican Donald Trump won the district by a 41-point margin.
who was re-elected in the 2nd district with 58.0% of the vote in 2024
The new district is based in eastern and southern Utah, encompassing a majority of the state's counties and portions of Utah and Weber counties, and includes the cities of Cedar City, St. George, Provo, Price, Orem, and Heber, as well as Brigham Young University.
candidate: Celeste Maloy (incumbent) votes: 67,135 percentage: 65.7
Decision Desk HQ R July 14, 2026 The Cook Political Report R November 11, 2025
Celeste Maloy (R) $1,177,361 $1,028,321 $256,062 | Kent Udell (D) $14,010 $3,380 $10,630
Mike Kennedy, incumbent U.S. representative (running in the 4th district)
Phil Lyman, former state representative from the 69th district (2019–2024) and candidate for governor in 2024
Jun. 1, 2026 Utah Debate Commission Thomas Wright P P
A debate, hosted by the Utah Debate Commission, is scheduled to be held at Utah Tech University on October 2.
Not in the source: No district poll is recorded, and the model's basis says no district polls.; The Silver Bulletin row in the predictions table has no ranking.; The ratings say only 'R' with no Lean/Likely/Safe grade.; No endorsements are listed under either party's endorsements heading.; The model's presidential baseline is on the 2024 map, not the new lines; the text's 41-point Trump margin is the only figure for the new district.
Read from the district's section of Wikipedia's state page (CC BY-SA), archived as a3610c25630f; written by claude-fable-5-1 (batch reader) on 2026-09-30 and checked mechanically: every quote occurs verbatim in the archived text, every number in the brief occurs in the inputs. No probability here is the reader's.
Who holds the seat now
Mike Kennedy (Republican), in this chamber since 2025, 1 term. Committees: House Committee on Natural Resources; House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure; House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology.
From the congress-legislators dataset (CC0), archived as ae8cb9477c48. For a Senate race this lists both of the state's senators; the one whose term ends in the election year holds the seat on the ballot. For a House district redrawn for 2026 it is the member elected under the old lines with this number, who may be running elsewhere; the dossier above names who is running here.
How it has voted for president
| Two-party margin | 2016 | 2020 | 2024 |
|---|---|---|---|
| President | R+51.7 | R+44.0 | R+43.7 |
A shift of 8.1 points toward the Democrats from 2016 to 2024. county returns placed on the current lines by 2020 block population; MEDSL county file (2016), an MIT-licensed county file (2020, checked against certified state results) and MEDSL precinct returns (2024). For a district split across counties this is an estimate, and where the state published the exact 2024 figure for these lines, that exact figure is the one the model uses.
Who are the voters?
| Group (adults 25+) | Share of adults | Turnout 2020 / midterm | Share of a midterm electorate | Est. Democratic share, 2020 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| White, no degree | 52% | 57% / 47% | 47% | 17% |
| White, degree | 32% | 77% / 74% | 45% | 37% |
| Black | 0% | 22% / 32% | 0% | 89% |
| Hispanic | 10% | 35% / 14% | 3% | 52% |
| Asian | 1% | 20% / 27% | 1% | 61% |
| Other / multiracial | 5% | 60% / 49% | 5% | 55% |
Of about 471,711 adults 25 and over. In 2020 the district voted 28.8% Democratic (two-party) for president. With the same preferences and a 2022-style midterm turnout, it would vote 28.7% Democratic: the midterm electorate alone moves the margin 0.3 points toward Republicans. Group shares are estimated from how results vary across the state's census tracts (ecological inference, anchored to Pew's 2020 validated-voter figures) and calibrated to this district's actual 2020 vote; turnout is the Census survey's state rate by race and national rate by education, whose state samples carry margins of several points.
Not answered here: how each group will vote in 2026. These are 2020 preferences; this profile is description, not yet an input to the forecast.
The money
| Candidate | Raised | Cash on hand | PAC share | Self-funded | Outside $ for | Outside $ against |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Maloy, Celeste (REP) incumbent | $1,453,861 | $322,379 | 46% | 0% | $1,311,054 | $300,000 |
| Curtis, John (REP) incumbent · not on our roster | $737,003 | $674,751 | 53% | 0% | $0 | $0 |
| Lyman, Phillip Kay (REP) challenger · not on our roster | $48,004 | $2,115 | 0% | 21% | $0 | $35,500 |
| Udell, Kent Dr. (DEM) challenger | $47,533 | $13,335 | 0% | 0% | $0 | $0 |
| Harris, David (REP) challenger · not on our roster | $42,995 | $0 | 0% | 33% | $0 | $0 |
| Merrill, Steven (DEM) challenger · not on our roster | $21,088 | $761 | 5% | 66% | $0 | $0 |
| Hooslyn, Adonis (UN) challenger · not on our roster | $663 | $-9,641 | 0% | 74% | $0 | $0 |
| Dougall, John (REP) open seat · not on our roster | $104 | $0 | 0% | 0% | $0 | $0 |
FEC bulk candidate summaries through June 30, 2026; $1,646,554 of independent expenditures for or against these candidates this cycle (FEC Schedule E, types 24E and 24A), which is the parties' and outside groups' own revealed view of whether this seat is in play.
The district in numbers
| Measure | District | Nation | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bachelor's degree or higher, 25+ | 36.4% | 34.9% | +1.4 pts |
| White, non-Hispanic | 79.4% | 58.2% | +21.1 pts |
| Black, non-Hispanic | 0.5% | 12.0% | -11.5 pts |
| Hispanic or Latino | 13.1% | 19.0% | -5.9 pts |
| Asian, non-Hispanic | 1.1% | 5.8% | -4.6 pts |
| Foreign-born | 7.0% | 13.9% | -6.9 pts |
| Median age | 33.2 | 39.2 | -6.0 |
| Median household income | $86,770 | $84,362 | $+2,409 |
| Median home value | $467,500 | $379,737 | $+87,763 |
| Owner-occupied homes | 69.1% | 65.1% | +4.0 pts |
| Unemployment, July 2026 (BLS county data) | 3.7% | 4.4% | -0.7 pts |
| Change in unemployment, past 12 months | +0.0 pts | — | — |
| Change since the last election (24 months) | -0.1 pts | — | — |
| Unemployment (ACS) | 3.7% | 5.2% | -1.5 pts |
| Federal government workers | 1.8% | 2.6% | -0.9 pts |
| Work from home | 14.0% | 13.5% | +0.5 pts |
| Households on SNAP | 6.0% | 11.8% | -5.8 pts |
| Households with Social Security income | 28.2% | 31.2% | -3.0 pts |
| Households with public assistance income | 1.6% | 2.7% | -1.1 pts |
| Moved in from another state, past year | 4.2% | 2.3% | +1.9 pts |
| Gini index | 0.40 | 0.44 | -0.04 |
| Per-capita personal income (BEA), 2024 | $69,169 | $73,248 | $-4,079 |
| Per-capita income growth since 2019, nominal, 2024 | 41.9% | 32.0% | +10.0 pts |
| Government and other transfers, share of income, 2024 | 13.6% | 19.6% | -6.0 pts |
| Social Security, share of income, 2022 | 4.6% | 5.8% | -1.2 pts |
| Medicare, share of income, 2022 | 2.9% | 4.5% | -1.5 pts |
| Medicaid, share of income, 2022 | 1.9% | 4.0% | -2.1 pts |
| SNAP, share of income, 2022 | 0.2% | 0.6% | -0.4 pts |
| Earned Income Tax Credit, share of income, 2022 | 0.2% | 0.4% | -0.1 pts |
| Veterans' benefits, share of income, 2022 | 0.5% | 0.9% | -0.3 pts |
| Federal civilian jobs, share of all jobs, 2022 | 0.6% | 1.3% | -0.7 pts |
| Military jobs, share of all jobs, 2022 | 0.5% | 0.9% | -0.4 pts |
ACS 5-year 2023, assembled from census tracts by the 2020 population of their blocks inside the current lines, because the Bureau has not tabulated these lines; medians are population-weighted means of tract medians. Unemployment is the BLS county series placed on the district by block population, not seasonally adjusted, so changes are same-month comparisons. Income, transfers and jobs are BEA county accounts placed the same way, compared with the average district. Every other figure is a named column of a named table in the Bureau's summary file, archived before it was read. This is what a reader knows about a district before looking at a poll; the model does not yet use it, and whether it should is a registered question.
Who is favoured, and by how much?
The 90% interval runs from -48.4 to -18.6 points, D-R. It is wide because this district has never been polled.
What is this built on?
A model trained on every contested House race 2012-2024 predicts this district's lean from its own record: presidential and House results on the current lines, incumbency, both candidates' prior offices, outside and party money before 1 October, demographics and public-assistance shares from the Census release before the election, local unemployment and income, and religious tradition. The national margin comes from presidential approval, the economy, the midterm penalty and the generic ballot corrected for its measured lean. Draws share national and state errors, so the seat total and this district come from the same simulation.
Not answered here: district polls, which are not yet folded in.
Why does the model say this?
Each figure is how far this district's predicted lean moves when that one feature is set to the typical value across 2026 districts, everything else held: 2024 presidential lean (R+42.7): 31.9 pts toward the Republican; 2024 House lean: 7.1 pts toward the Republican; asian share (1.2%): 1.3 pts toward the Republican; veterans share income (0.5%): 0.9 pts toward the Republican; snap share (5.6%): 0.7 pts toward the Republican.
How sure is it, and of what?
Total sd 9.10 points, made of the seat's own volatility 91%, correlated polling error 9%. The decomposition is stored with the forecast rather than reconstructed, so a probability whose dominant input is a placeholder is visibly that.
Not answered here: a nowcast. 'If ballots were cast today' needs something that observes today, and for a House district nothing does. Publishing the election-day figure under both labels would make one forecast look like two.
How was this number made?
Run 6f211e6f-2bdc-4dda-8f72-81fc628dab0b, house_district_prior/0.2.0, as of 2026-10-02. Promoted by a pre-registered gate: on 2016-2022 its Brier score was 0.036 against 0.049 for the previous method, and on a single 2024 run 0.023 against 0.032 (experiments/district_gate_result.md, with an independent review).