Recently I wanted to dig up all the county-level Republican and Democratic platforms here in Utah. My interest came from the pro-life plank in the surprisingly conservative Utah County Democratic platform–I wanted to see how many other county platforms in Utah said something that conflicted with the national party platforms.
Counties with Party Platforms (click to enlarge)
I was surprised to find that hardly any county parties in Utah have platforms. In fact, county platforms don’t even exist outside the greater Wasatch Front, unless I overlooked something. Take a look at the map at right. Counties in purple (Cache, Davis, Salt Lake, and Utah) have county-level platforms for both parties. Counties in red (Box Elder) have a county Republican platform. Counties in blue (Weber, Wasatch) have a county Democratic platform.
I would guess that a big reason so many county parties lack a platform is population. Not the county’s total population, but the population of Republicans or Democrats. If you don’t have at least several hundred Democrats in a county, you probably don’t have a very deep talent pool from which to recruit an active county Democratic chair who might bother to put together a platform committee prior to the county convention.
In the table below, I have listed the 12 counties with the most Democrats (number of Dems, not percent of Dems) and also the 12 counties with the most Republicans, always in descending order.1
| Largest Democratic populations | Has Democratic platform? | Largest Republican populations | Has Republican platform? | ||
| 1 | Salt Lake | Yes | 1 | Salt Lake | Yes |
| 2 | Davis | Yes | 2 | Utah | Yes |
| 3 | Utah | Yes | 3 | Davis | Yes |
| 4 | Weber | Yes | 4 | Weber | No |
| 5 | Washington | No | 5 | Washington | No |
| 6 | Summit | No | 6 | Cache | Yes |
| 7 | Cache | Yes | 7 | Box Elder | Yes |
| 8 | Tooele | No | 8 | Iron | No |
| 9 | Box Elder | No | 9 | Tooele | No |
| 10 | Carbon | No | 10 | Uintah | No |
| 11 | Iron | No | 11 | Summit | No |
| 12 | Wasatch | Yes | 12 | Sevier | No |
| 17 more counties | No | 17 more counties | No |
Looks like population is the main driver of platform adoption. Still, consider some weirdness:
- Why don’t we see platforms in Washington County? They’re big enough. Same with Summit Democrats and Weber Republicans.
- Why does Wasatch County have a Democratic platform? They have about 1/10 as many Democratic voters as most of the other counties with Democratic platforms.
I should mention that I searched the state and county party websites for platforms. It’s possible that some counties have a platform but don’t post it online. If you know of a platform that I missed, please send it along.
Possibly related posts:
Possibly related posts (automatically generated)
Will redistricting hurt Democrats in the state legislature? (June 6, 2011)
