The wrestle in the West

The 2016 election was “the hardest election, for me, of my life,” Gov. Spencer Cox said . He couldn’t manage to vote that year for either Hillary Clinton, the Democratic nominee, or his own party’s choice, Donald Trump. He ended up writing in someone else. By 2020, Cox came around: he acknowledged the Trump administration was doing “some really good things” and said he would support Trump’s reelection effort. “His style of politics is not the Utah Republican style of politics,” Cox said in a gubernatorial primary debate that year. “We just have to understand that and accept that.” But by November, he couldn’t bring himself to vote for Trump. He, again, wrote in someone else’s name.

Over the four subsequent years, Cox built a national profile as a Republican governor openly skeptical of Trump’s grip on the GOP. After Trump’s refusal to concede the 2020 election and the Jan. 6 riot that followed, Cox called on him to resign, saying it “would be good for the nation.” He rejected the “anti-Trump” label, instead saying he loved some of the things Trump did, but had “serious issues” with others. “I try to treat everyone with dignity and respect,” Cox explained .

That became his mantra: when he was elected chair of the National Governors Association in 2023, he announced “Disagree Better” as his initiative , and spent the next year leading events geared toward building cross-aisle camaraderie. The national profiles began to roll in. TIME Magazine said he showed “it’s possible to be a socially conscious Republican.” Politico called him “the new face of Trump skepticism on the right.”

Then, seemingly out of nowhere, Cox announced that he would, in fact, be supporting Trump. It shocked many Utah Republicans — not in the slightest because Cox, just a week earlier, said he would write in a candidate again during a CNN appearance. “The number of ‘WTF’ texts I’ve gotten from folks in Utah (and outside who have followed Cox) is astonishing,” one Utah political operative told me, minutes after Cox’s announcement. “We are all going to blow our ACLs bending our knees so violently,” another said.

But to people close to Cox’s thinking, the governor’s about-face was not an act of submission or a craven political calculation. (Cox’s spokesperson declined an interview request for this story.) If it was, they reasoned, he would’ve done so long before. In March, after Cox warned that the GOP would make “a huge mistake” by nominating Trump and openly expressed hope that Nikki Haley would win the nomination, Trump allies encouraged Cox to get on board. “Trump’s going to be the nominee,” Don Peay, a friend of the Trump family, remembers telling Cox. “Get behind him so Utah has a choice.” Peay, who oversaw Trump’s 2016 campaign in Utah, had himself gone through a reconversion, souring on Trump’s reelection chances early in the 2024 primary before coming back around. But Cox demurred. “I don’t want to appear to be pandering to win a primary,” Cox said, per Peay’s recollection.

Trump, as Peay predicted, romped his way through the primary. Cox won his primary, too, despite attacks for his perceived disloyalty to the Republican nominee. He then reaffirmed his intention to not make an endorsement in the presidential race, which seemed to be barreling toward a low-enthusiasm Biden-Trump rematch. Then, in the hours after the attempted assassination on Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania on July 13, Cox wrote a letter to Trump, hinting at his own change of heart. “Your life was spared,” Cox wrote . “Now, because of that miracle, you have the opportunity to do something that no other person on earth can do right now: unify and save our country.”

Cox sent the letter that night to Peay, who passed it along to Keith Mark, founder and CEO of Hunter Nation. Mark, surprised, called it a “mighty change of heart.” The next morning, hours before the Republican National Convention opened in Milwaukee, Mark and Donald Trump Jr. appeared together at an event for delegates sponsored by Hunter Nation and the National Rifle Association. Mark pulled Trump Jr. aside and showed him the letter. Later that day, Trump Jr. showed the letter to his father. Trump was pleased.

‘I do not recognize my party’

The dilemma that Cox faced for eight years is shared by thousands of religious conservatives in the West. While most Republicans in this camp support Trump in his third run for the presidency, questions about Trump’s character and fitness for office are enough to keep many lifelong Republicans from enthusiastically supporting him. But they do not necessarily find the alternative, Vice President Kamala Harris, to be palatable, either: she’s a progressive Democrat with whom they share little in common on policy. To some in this group, it’s a choice between an “ awful person or awful policies ,” as Sen. Mitt Romney said about the 2020 race between Trump and President Joe Biden.

For John Giles, the Republican mayor of Mesa, Arizona, backing Harris is the obvious choice. Like Cox, he’s a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints; like Cox, he’s a lifelong Republican who has faced backlash from his own party. But recently, Giles has become a vocal supporter of Harris. He penned an op-ed in the Arizona Republic announcing his support. He appeared at a press conference launching the “Republicans for Harris” initiative. And when Harris visited Arizona last week, Giles was one of the rally’s introductory speakers.

“I do not recognize my party,” Giles told the crowd. “The Republican Party has been taken over by extremists that are committed to forcing people in the center of the political spectrum out of the party.”

Mesa, once rated the most conservative large city in America, has a population of more than 500,000, twice that of Salt Lake City. It is the fifth-largest city in the U.S. led by a Republican. Giles’ political stances, then, are not always popular. He took heat for calling Trump an “idiot” in 2017, and for encouraging then- Sen. Jeff Flake to run for president against him. In the 2022 midterms, when Giles endorsed a pair of Democrats, Sen. Mark Kelly and Gov. Katie Hobbs, he was formally censured by his party. Giles shrugged. “We need to prioritize the good of our state and our nation over partisan politics,” he said then.

Now, Giles is making a larger gamble. But his conclusion came from the same internal battle Cox and other conservatives have faced during the Trump era. “A lot of Republicans were grumpy about Trump during his first campaign,” Giles told me hours before last week’s Harris rally. He didn’t support Trump in 2016 or 2020, he said, but he didn’t publicly oppose him, either. “But then, you know, when you had the election denialism and what happened on January 6, a lot of these things were just way over the top,” he continued. “And I think people like me at that point said, ‘Hello, are you seeing what’s happening?’ It’s shocking that people have such a short memory.”

To conservative voters who are repulsed by Trump, the choice is clear, Giles said. “A lot of folks either won’t vote for Trump, or they’re tempted to hold their nose and vote for Trump, because they don’t see a real alternative. They think the Democratic candidate is just too progressive for them to, in good conscience, vote Democrat,” Giles said. “I think they need to realize that if you’ve come to the decision — to the realization — that Donald Trump is not a legitimate candidate and that he’ll do damage to our country, you have to vote for Vice President Harris.”

Giles doesn’t deny that he and Harris have differences on policy opinions. “She had the reputation, when she was a senator from California, for being very progressive, and I think that’s probably fair,” Giles said. “But I think she has evolved in the last four years as vice president. You’ve seen the Biden administration do some very centrist things.” He pointed to the bipartisan infrastructure bill and the CHIPS and Science Act as examples. “Those are things that have had huge economic impacts here,” he said. “In city government, we focus in between the 20 yard lines, on solving problems.”

In Arizona, where the Trump campaign launched its “Latter-day Saints for Trump” initiative in 2020, Giles is now the face of the pro-Harris movement. But others were involved long before: Dan Barker, a retired judge and fellow Latter-day Saint, launched the “Arizona Republicans Who Believe in Treating Others with Respect” PAC in 2020 to pull together moderates, independents and conservatives in support of Biden. He is doing the same this year for Harris. And Yasser Sanchez, a Mesa immigration attorney, has paid for billboards saying “ADIÓS TRUMP” to dot Arizona’s freeways. “I hear from a lot of Latino members or people that are investigating the church who say, ‘I’m confused, because members of your church are very kind, and so I don’t, we don’t understand how they’re supporting Trump,’” Sanchez said. (The First Presidency has repeatedly emphasized the church’s political neutrality, while encouraging members to be engaged, informed voters.)

To Giles, Cox’s decision was surprising. “I’ve watched Governor Cox with admiration from Arizona,” Giles said. He was so struck by Cox’s “Disagree Better” movement that he launched a copycat initiative with the Democratic mayor of Tempe. “I can’t comment on why he chose to write the letter that he did” to Trump, Giles added. “I do know that for about five minutes I had the same hope.” Giles said he watched Trump’s convention speech and heard a “different tone” from Trump. “But that was very short lived,” he added. “And I don’t know if it was literally the next day or within 48 hours, certainly (Trump) was worse than ever.” Giles announced his endorsement of Harris less than three weeks later.

Will religious voters decide the election?

Republicans had opportunities to choose another candidate. Two years ago, it appeared Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis was the GOP’s heir-apparent. In Utah, he enjoyed widespread support: in late 2022, 86 elected officials across the state asked him to run for president, and by spring of 2023, most Republican county chairs across the state liked him over Trump . But DeSantis’ campaign flamed out shortly after the Iowa caucuses.

Nikki Haley , the former U.N. ambassador and South Carolina governor, was Trump’s final hurdle to the nomination. For a moment, Haley showed promise. Instead of bowing out when Trump trained his attacks on her, like a dozen other GOP candidates did, she doubled down. She pitched voters on a post-Trump Republican Party, a return to family and faith . “She is smart and erudite,” said David H. Leroy, who co-chaired Haley’s campaign in Idaho. “I thought she was a candidate that had none of the personal or political baggage that President Trump continues to accumulate.”

But when Haley ended her campaign after Super Tuesday, Leroy — a former Idaho lieutenant governor and an official in the George H.W. Bush administration — had no issue shifting his support to Trump. “I indicated to myself, as a longstanding Republican, that I would be supporting the ticket and the presumptive nominee ... as conventional Republicans were compelled to do,” he said. Haley herself followed suit, endorsing Trump and accepting a primetime speaking slot at last month’s Republican National Convention.

To Leroy, the continuation of the Biden-Harris administration’s policies — by way of a Harris victory — constitute “an existential threat” to the country. “If we do not significantly change the direction of policies of this country, I’m very fearful my children and grandchildren will live in a country where it is impossible to achieve the standard of living, and the standard of security, which I’ve enjoyed during my lifetime,” he said.

The biggest barrier to that? By Leroy’s estimation, it’s the focus on moral character and persona instead of policy. “I prefer to keep religion and national government generally separated,” Leroy said. “We tend to place too much emphasis on, or frame too many issues in, a moral context that offends many moderates. ... The intersection of religion and politics has not been always friendly to the Republican Party, in my opinion.” If the 2024 election were focused on “pocketbook issues,” Leroy said, “it would be a runaway election for the Republicans. But when you mix in Mr. Trump’s persona and the imprecision with which he communicates to the public, it’s eminently possible that this election could be lost on issues that are more related to personality than to the core problems and solutions for the country.”

Leroy’s hypothesis has some backing. In 2020, conservative suburban women — many of whom said they liked Trump’s policies but not his character — were a key bloc that secured Biden’s victory. Many of them, in Arizona particularly, were Latter-day Saints. This current election cycle, there are enough Latter-day Saints in Arizona — and nearby Nevada — to conceivably sway the election in both battleground states. But Latter-day Saints seem to be increasingly dissatisfied with their options. “They feel like they don’t have a home right now in American politics,” said David Campbell, director of the Notre Dame Democracy Initiative.

That won’t stop many religious conservatives from supporting Trump. Many of these voters, including conservative Latter-day Saints, credit Trump for securing a conservative majority on the Supreme Court, which has ruled in historic abortion and religious liberty cases. “President Trump and his family are God-believing people,” said Layne Bangerter, an EPA official during the Trump administration. “They live strictly by The Golden Rule. President Trump and his family are many things but foremost, Americans, and Capitalists with an emphasis on preserving and enhancing Individual Rights and Religious Liberties.” Bangerter’s view is shared by Republicans at large: according to a Deseret News/HarrisX poll of U.S. voters, most Republicans view Trump as a person of faith.

The cost of an endorsement

What will Cox gain from his endorsement of Trump? “Not much,” said Peay, who facilitated the letter delivery to Trump. If Cox wanted a boost in the primary, he would’ve done it months ago; if he wanted a spot in a second Trump administration, he would’ve done it years ago. “I’m 100% convinced that Cox did it because he felt it was the right thing to do,” Peay said.

The crux of Cox’s message — that Trump has an opportunity to unite the country — seems reliant on Trump’s willingness to “turn down the temperature,” as Cox wrote . But Cox offered his full endorsement, without qualifiers: when asked in his July press conference if he was “endorsing” and “will vote” for Trump, Cox obliged. “Yes, and that’s part of supporting. I’ll do anything I can to help. My commitment to him is I would help him try to lower the temperature in this country.”

In the subsequent weeks, after Biden dropped out of the race, the election delved into something akin to a lunchroom foodfight. Democrats focused particularly on Trump’s running mate, Sen. JD Vance — by calling him (and others) “weird.” Vance has complained that the tactic resembles a “schoolyard bully,” and retaliated by calling Harris “wacky” and “weird.” As to whether Trump fulfilled his side of Cox’s mandate — he seems perturbed by the very idea. “They say something happened to me when I got shot. I became nice,” Trump said at a rally a week after the Republican convention. “If you don’t mind, I’m not going to be nice.” Later, at a fundraiser in New York, Trump fumed that the media had portrayed him as softer. “I’m not nicer,” Trump said, according to the New York Times. And as Harris has emerged atop the Democratic ticket, Trump and his allies have resorted to attacks based on her race and gender .

“As far as the personal attacks, I’m very angry at her because of what she’s done to the country,” Trump said in a press conference this week. “I think I’m entitled to personal attacks. I don’t have a lot of respect for her. I don’t have a lot of respect for her intelligence, and I think she’ll be a terrible president.”

That hasn’t stopped most conservative religious lawmakers in the West from circling the wagons around Trump. Romney is one of the lone exceptions: In Utah, Romney is the only member of the congressional delegation who has said he will not vote for Trump. “I know for some people, character is not the No. 1 issue,” Romney said in May. “It is for me.”

Utah’s senior senator, Mike Lee, alongside Reps. Celeste Maloy, Blake Moore and Burgess Owens, have all formally endorsed Trump. Rep. John Curtis — who won the GOP primary to replace Romney — has said he’ll vote for him, too, while leaving the door open for disagreement. “I found, last time I served with President Trump, a comfortable place to support him when he was doing what I would call promoting Utah’s values,” Curtis told the Deseret News. “And I was also OK standing up when I felt like he was going against Utah values.”

But only Cox tethered his support to a plea for civility: a hope, perhaps naive, that Trump will change course. “Some might say cynically (Cox’s endorsement) is born of political necessity; I think it comes from his unquenchable idealism,” said one person who has worked closely with Cox in recent years. In the letter, Cox predicted “an historic margin” of victory if Trump softens his tone and preaches unity. The inverse could be true, too: if Trump continues on his current path, Trump could be destined to a repeat of 2020, where many conservative voters who would otherwise vote for the Republican hold back. “I’m very concerned that the Trump persona can, if not properly channeled toward the issues, once again snatch defeat from the jaws of victory,” Leroy said.