Why Join a Local PAC in Utah? The Founding Forty Case

Every four years, conservative Utahns write checks to national campaigns they will never meet, chasing races decided in states most of them have never visited. Meanwhile, the people who actually set the property tax rate, decide whether a water bond gets funded, and determine who represents Utah's supermajority delegation in the Legislature are often elected with almost no organized support at all. If you've ever wondered why join a local PAC in Utah instead of writing a check to a national super PAC, the honest answer is arithmetic: the dollar goes roughly ten times further at home.

That isn't a metaphor. It's a fact you can check against Utah's own campaign finance filings.

The Math Favors Local Investment

In the 2024 election cycle, candidates across all 89 contested Utah House and Senate races spent a combined $5.8 million, or about $65,000 per race on average. Winning candidates spent roughly $40,000 on average—and seventeen winners spent under $10,000 to secure their seats. One unopposed winner spent just $1,085.

Compare that to a single statewide race. In the 2024 U.S. Senate contest, more than $13 million in campaign and outside spending went toward supporting Rep. John Curtis alone—more than double what every Utah legislative candidate combined spent that same cycle. The entire State House and State Senate, the bodies that write Utah's budget, set water and housing policy, and shape the tax code, cost less to contest than one federal primary.

That gap is the whole argument. National races are an ocean of money where an individual donor is a drop. Utah legislative and municipal races are shallow enough that a coordinated, modest amount of local giving can genuinely move outcomes—recruiting a strong candidate, funding a serious campaign, or simply making sure a good incumbent doesn't go unchallenged into retirement.

Why Join a Local PAC in Utah: The Primary Is Often the Whole Election

There's a second reason local investment punches above its weight, and it has nothing to do with dollars—it has to do with how few races are actually contested.

In the 2024 election cycle, 20 of the 75 Utah House seats and two of the 15 Senate seats up for election were uncontested or already decided before the general election—roughly one in four races settled before a single general-election ballot was cast. In a legislature that has operated under a durable Republican supermajority, that means the Republican primary, not November, is where most of these seats are actually won.

Municipal elections tell an even starker story. Between 2017 and 2023, Utah municipal elections averaged just 14% voter turnout, compared with roughly 60% in presidential years and 44% in other statewide election years. City councils, school boards, and mayors—the offices that decide zoning, local tax rates, and how fast a city grows—are routinely elected by a sliver of the electorate that shows up.

The entire State House and State Senate cost less to contest than one federal primary. That gap is the whole argument for local political investment.

Low turnout and uncontested races sound like bad news for democracy, and in some sense they are. But they also mean an organized group of engaged conservatives—people who show up to caucus, vet candidates seriously, and back them early—has outsized influence in exactly the races where policy outcomes are decided closest to home. That's the case for local investment in one sentence: where fewer people are paying attention, the people who do pay attention matter more.

What Founding Forty Membership Actually Buys You

The Republican Roundtable PAC's Founding Forty program is built around that math. Founding Forty members hold a seat on the board itself, giving them a direct voice in which candidates the PAC evaluates, endorses, and funds—decisions made months before most voters are paying attention to a given race.

Membership also includes quarterly luncheons that put members in the room with sitting officeholders and national figures who have addressed RRPAC gatherings, including former Vice President Mike Pence, U.S. Senator Mike Lee, former National Security Advisor John Bolton, U.S. Representative Blake Moore, Salt Lake City Mayor Erin Mendenhall, Utah Senate President J. Stuart Adams, and Utah House Speaker Mike Schultz. That access isn't a perk bolted onto the mission—it's part of the mission. Candidate recruitment and vetting work best when the people doing it have direct, ongoing relationships with the leaders already governing the state.

Four Reasons Local Investment Outperforms National Giving

Smaller races, bigger marginal impact. A $40,000 average winning campaign means a coordinated group of donors can plausibly fund a serious challenger outright—something no group of individual donors could do in a $13 million Senate race.
Low turnout means organized turnout wins. With municipal turnout averaging 14%, a PAC that helps identify, recruit, and mobilize support around a strong candidate is often the deciding factor, not a rounding error.
The primary is the real contest. With roughly a quarter of legislative seats settled before November, vetting and backing candidates ahead of the primary—not after—is where local PAC involvement matters most.
Local outcomes compound. The legislators elected in these low-cost, low-turnout races are the same people who set the state budget, water policy, and tax rates covered elsewhere on this site—decisions with a direct, visible effect on Utah families.

Pragmatic Conservatism Needs Infrastructure, Not Just Slogans

Utah's brand of pragmatic, problem-solving conservatism doesn't sustain itself. It requires candidates willing to do the unglamorous work of governing—showing up to interim committee hearings, reading the fiscal notes, negotiating water and housing bills that don't make national headlines. Recruiting and funding those candidates is infrastructure work, and infrastructure work requires an organized, funded group willing to do it consistently, cycle after cycle, not just in presidential years.

That is the case for a local PAC over a one-time individual contribution. A single donor writing a check to a single candidate is making one bet. A PAC with an engaged board evaluating a full slate of races—from the Legislature down to city council—is running a portfolio, informed by relationships built over years, not a single campaign cycle.

The Bottom Line

National politics will keep pulling attention and money toward races most Utahns can only watch from the sidelines. The races that actually determine whether Utah keeps its AAA credit rating, keeps cutting taxes responsibly, and keeps building enough housing and water infrastructure to support its own growth are decided closer to home, for a fraction of the cost, often by a fraction of the electorate.

The Republican Roundtable PAC exists to make sure principled, pragmatic conservatives are organized where that leverage actually sits. If you've been asking why join a local PAC in Utah rather than simply writing checks nationally, this is the answer: because the seats decided down the ballot are the ones still within reach. Learn more about becoming a Founding Forty member and help fund the recruitment and vetting work that keeps Utah's legislature stocked with serious, capable leaders.

The Founding Forty and the Case for Local Political Investment