As President-elect Donald Trump assembles his team for a second term, whispers are swirling that Sen. Mike Lee might be on the shortlist for a cabinet position.
Sources tell Utah Political Watch that Trump’s team has reached out to Lee about joining the administration. Lee is believed to be the frontrunner to become Attorney General under Trump, but he has publicly expressed his commitment to staying in the Senate. Lee was an assistant U.S. Attorney for Utah from 2002 to 2005.
However, if Lee decides to make a move to the Trump White House, there’s a two-step process for selecting a replacement.
Utah is one of 45 states where the governor appoints a temporary replacement for a U.S. Senator who leaves office before their term ends. However, the responsibility for picking a temporary replacement is mostly up to the Utah Legislature.
If Lee resigns, lawmakers will send three possible replacements for Gov. Spencer Cox to choose from. State law specifies that those three nominees must come from the same political party as the officeholder.
It used to be up to a political party's state central committee to select those possible replacements. Lawmakers changed the process to give that authority to themselves in 2020.
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The competition to be one of the trio of names forwarded to the governor would likely be intense. Whoever is appointed would become the de facto incumbent, giving them a significant advantage in a special election to select a permanent replacement to serve out the remainder of the term until 2028.
According to Utah law, the primary election would be on August 12th, the same day as the 2025 municipal primary. But, the general election would not be until the same day as the 2026 primary.
Lawmakers can alter the timeline to speed up the special election, similar to what happened after Rep. Chris Stewart resigned last year. Instead of waiting until November to hold a primary and the special election the following spring, lawmakers moved the November election back by two weeks.
Only one senator from Utah has resigned before the end of his term. In 1974, Republican Wallace Bennett decided not to run for another term in office. Bennett resigned on Dec. 20, 1974, allowing Republican Jake Garn, who won the election to replace him, to take office two weeks early. Because of that, Garn had seniority over the other incoming senators when the new Congress was sworn in.
