Ben McAdams

Ben McAdams is the Democratic nominee for Utah's open 1st Congressional District. A Utah native and attorney, he served in the Utah State Senate, as Salt Lake County Mayor (2013-2019) and for one term as U.S. Representative for the 4th District (2019-2021), losing re-election in 2020. He won the June 23, 2026 Democratic primary and is running on affordability, opposition to Trump administration immigration enforcement tactics, and defending democratic institutions.[1][2][3]

Ben McAdams was born December 5, 1974, in West Bountiful, Utah.[3] He earned a bachelor's degree in political science from the University of Utah in 2000 and a law degree from Columbia Law School in 2003.[1][3] McAdams began his legal career as an associate at Davis Polk & Wardwell in New York, according to Wikipedia, then returned to Utah and practiced securities law at Dorsey & Whitney in Salt Lake City. He later served as an adjunct professor at the University of Utah School of Law.[1][3]

McAdams worked as a senior advisor to Salt Lake City Mayor Ralph Becker, per Wikipedia, and his campaign website cites that role and his work on a Salt Lake City LGBT non-discrimination ordinance.[3][4] He represented District 2 in the Utah State Senate from 2008 to 2012, after winning a special election to replace Scott McCoy, and left the Senate when he was elected Salt Lake County Mayor in 2012.[1][3][6] He served as mayor from January 2013 to January 2019 and won re-election in 2016.[1][3]

In 2018 McAdams was elected to Utah's 4th Congressional District, defeating Republican incumbent Mia Love. He served from 2019 to 2021 on the Committee on Financial Services and the Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, and lost re-election in 2020 to Burgess Owens by under one percentage point, per Wikipedia.[1][3] After leaving Congress he worked as CEO of Propvizer and the Common Ground Institute and as a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and Sorenson Impact, and has also been affiliated with Utah's Promise and the Site Readiness for Good Jobs Fund.[1] McAdams announced his candidacy for the redrawn 1st District in November 2025, after a court ordered Utah's congressional map redrawn. He lost the April 25 Democratic convention to Liban Mohamed, 51.5% to 48.5% on the final ballot, but gathered signatures to reach the primary, which he won on June 23, 2026 with 51.9% over Nate Blouin, Mohamed and Michael Farrell.[1][3][5][6]

Researched from the cited sources on 2026-10-21.