The triumph Saturday of Republican Burgess Owens in Utah’s 4th District brings the Republican net gain in the U.S. House to 13 seats—meaning that the party breakdown in the next House will be 222 to 213, the closest division between the major parties since 1958.
Coupled with that of Byron Donalds in Florida’s 19th District, onetime NFL player Owens’ eIection means there will be two black Republicans in the House at the same time—an accomplishment the Republican Party has only twice achieved since the 19th Century (in 1994-6, with Connecticut’s Gary Franks and Oklahoma’s J.C. Watts, and 2010-12, with Allen West of Florida and Tim Scott of South Carolina).
With the final count completed Saturday morning, Owens led Democratic Rep. Ben McAdams by 2,095 votes out of more than 350,000 cast.
McAdams, who unseated Republican Rep. Mia Love by 694 votes in ’18, could not build up a big enough margin this year in his home county of Salt Lake to overcome Owens’ big margins in the other two counties in the district.
Outside groups fueled vicious attacks against the two candidates. As former Rep. Ernest Istook, R.-Okla, who now lives in the Utah-4, told Newsmax: “The ads for McAdams focused on Owens’ bankruptcies as a private businessman but they became oversaturated and wore out their welcome.”
Pro-Owens ads, usually by outside groups,’ hammered away that McAdams voted with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi 85-90 per cent of the time, , had a 100 per cent pro-Planned Parenthood voting record, and voted in favor of taxpayer-funded sex change operations.
“This was a classic case of voters ‘coming home’ to their core values,” Istook told us, “Voting for Trump didn't necessarily show that, but voting for the Republican candidate for Congress did. Voting for Burgess Owens was the clearest way for Utah voters to show their opposition to Democrats in Congress.”
© 2025 Newsmax. All rights reserved.