This Republican Opposed Gerrymandering. A New Map Has Become A Primary Problem.

Republican Rep. Blake Moore’s involvement in a successful anti-gerrymandering initiative helped launch his political career. It is now coming back to bite him.

Moore’s fast rise through Utah politics into House GOP leadership began when he co-chaired a group that pushed a 2018 ballot measure to limit gerrymandering in the state. That kicked off a long and unpredictable redistricting saga that ended this year in Republican fury — over a court-ordered congressional map with a new safe blue seat based in Salt Lake City.

Republicans’ efforts to overturn that map faceplanted in late March. And some are blaming Moore and his involvement with Proposition 4, the 2018 ballot initiative.

“To a lot of the Republicans who have served for a long time and have been in leadership, like me, Prop 4 is a slap in the face,” said Don Guymon, chair of the Davis County GOP in Moore’s new district. “People are concerned, and I think we'll see whether they hold Blake accountable for that or not.”

Moore’s role in the process is fueling a primary challenge and could potentially hinder his future hopes at statewide office, a sign of how dramatically the politics around map-drawing have shifted over the past few years. Not long ago, anti-gerrymandering efforts were rarely a major campaign issue for voters. But President Donald Trump’s 2025 push for mid-decade gerrymandering, and Democrats’ furious response, have made voters in both parties tune in to the importance of the issue.

Now, Utah is an early testing ground for this new redistricting-driven politics.

“What good is a leadership position when Blake made it easier for Democrats to take the House?” said former state Rep. Karianne Lisonbee, who’s running against Moore for the seat.

Lisonbee and other political foes have nicknamed Moore “Salt Lake Blake,” suggesting he run in the blue district they blame him for creating.

Moore seems poised to survive the primary challenge: An internal poll commissioned by Moore’s team and obtained by POLITICO shows the congressman dominating Lisonbee and Colton Hatch, another challenger, by 47 percentage points in a three-way contest. Moore boasts endorsements from Trump, Speaker Mike Johnson and House Freedom Caucus founder Jim Jordan. But the battle could also be an opportunity for Moore’s potential future opponents — should he run for governor or U.S. Senate in 2028.

Utah House Speaker Mike Schultz, widely seen as a candidate for governor in 2028, has come out swinging, endorsing Lisonbee and branding Moore as “not a conservative.” And while Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) — who is up for reelection in 2028 — hasn’t weighed in himself, his top adviser frequently attacks Moore on social media.

“Salt Lake Blake planned for this mess all along,” Dan Hauser, Lee’s chief strategist, recently posted on X. “His voters should let him know 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 [this year] is any different. It's always just another thing, opportunistic thing, to try to pin on me.”Moore says fair representation, not a Democratic House seat, was the original goal of the Better Boundaries initiative, and he denounces the judge’s ruling last year that installed a blue district.

“I don’t support what the judge did,” Moore said. “She should have allowed for the state legislature to have their 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 paths candidates follow to get on the primary ballot. Hardliners have dominated the convention for years, and Moore has historically struggled there: He lost at convention by double-digits in all three of his previous election cycles, before romping to massive victories in the summer primary. Anger over Prop 4 could take opposition to a new level this year, subjecting Moore to the ire faced by other establishment-leaning Republicans like Gov. Spencer Cox and former Sen. Mitt Romney in recent years.

A former State Department foreign service officer and management consultant, Moore joined the anti-gerrymandering Better Boundaries initiative in 2017 as one of four co-chairs. The group launched Proposition 4 to establish an independent redistricting advisory commission.

The ballot initiative passed. Two years later, Moore emerged victorious from a crowded primary for a U.S. House seat vacated by the retiring Rep. Rob Bishop.

Meanwhile, redistricting litigation dragged on. Last year, District Judge Dianna Gibson ruled that the GOP-controlled state legislature failed to comply with Prop 4 when it drew four safe Republican districts in the 2022 map. Gibson eventuallyselected a different map, which includes a blue seat in Salt Lake County.

The state’s Republicans launched an effort to place a Prop 4 repeal vote on this November's ballot, which would empower the state legislature to redraw the map for 2028. But in spite of an endorsement from Trump and efforts from Turning Point Action, they failed to verify enough signatures to get the measure on the ballot, dooming its chances.

That failure means Republicans will lose a House seat not just this election, but likely for the rest of the decade — leaving Utah Republicans furious.

Turning Point Action now plans to pivot its in-state efforts to defeating Moore, the group’s COO Tyler Bowyer said. “We blame Salt Lake Blake for this entire mess,” he said.

Moore now says Better Boundaries deviated from its original mission. “There's far more 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 “just always focused on the process.”

“The Better Boundaries of today is one that partners with liberal, progressive organizations whose mission is to defeat Republicans,” added Utah GOP Chair Rob Axson, who isn’t endorsing in Moore’s primary because of his chairmanship. “So any claim that Better Boundaries is a nonpartisan, impartial, middle-of-the-road entity is divorced from reality.”

Some Utahns want Moore to be more forceful in his denunciation. “Now would be the time to step up and say, ‘This is a bad result and not what any of us intended,’” said one senior Utah Republican, granted anonymity to discuss GOP sentiment in the state openly. “And the fact that that's not happening is creating resentment that results in backlash toward Blake.”

Moore did not sign onto the repeal attempt, saying he would have preferred a constitutional amendment over a ballot initiative. When two of his House colleagues sued to stop the new map from taking place, Moore did not join.

Despite not adding his signature to the Prop 4 repeal, Moore didcut a video about it, saying Better Boundaries and other affiliated groups should stop trying to remove signatures after the deadline had already passed.

“The only reason he did [the video] is to cover his ass for reelection,” said Schultz, who endorsed Lisonbee this month. “If somebody really cared, they would have put out a video like he was asked to do, and come out and help and be part of the repeal of Prop 4.”

Schultz cast doubt on Moore’s future aspirations, given the redistricting mess. “There's no way Blake would win the Republican primary [for governor] after costing Utah a Republican seat in Congress,” he said.

The same conversation would arise if Moore pursued 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 a strong conservative is running” but “currently has no plans to get involved in any primary races in Utah.”

When asked if he’s considering running for governor or U.S. Senate in 2028, Moore demurred. “I'm running in a primary for the second district,” he said. “That's all I'm focused on right now.” (Schultz, for his part, said he has “no idea if I'm running” for governor: “It's not even anything that I'm focused on right now.”)

That hasn’t stopped widespread speculation in the state about Moore’s future.

“He's a good congressman, could be a good senator. He could be a good governor,” said former Utah Gov. Gary Herbert. The attacks on him make sense in that context, Herbert noted: “I can see somebody who says, ‘I don't want him running against me, because he would be a very good potential opposition.’”

Moore has garnered support from a broad array of Utah politicos for this race, including Utah Senate President Stuart Adams and over a dozen members of the state legislature. U.S. Sen. John Curtis said he would offer his endorsement if Moore asked for it. “Blake’s done a great job for the state and for the district,” Curtis said.

Moore — who has his eye on the Budget Committee chairmanship — exudes confidence in his political future.

“To have a member from Utah for the first time in leadership gives Utah an outsized voice,” Moore said. “I think most people see that as a positive. State legislators — that will tell me in private how awesome that is — will try to create a different narrative, just because politically it might be fun for some folks to do that.”