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On the eve of talksbetween the United States, Mexico and Canada to renegotiatetheNorth American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), Republican San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer is encouragingpolicymakers to look at thesuccess story the pacthas created inhis city.

Free trade works, Faulconer told the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco on Tuesday evening. Weve grown our exports in San Diego by $5 billion since NAFTA. Mexico is our biggest export partner from San Diego.

As mayor of the states second-largest city and throughsheer attrition of Republicanofficeholders Faulconer is seen as a leading figure in Californias GOP. While once again declaring that he is not running for governor in 2018 as some have encouraged, Faulconer laid out his blueprint for the partys return to statewide relevance, which includes support for free trade policies.

President Donald Trump has called NAFTA the worst deal ever made, and argued that talks beginningWednesday should focus on reducing the trade deficit with Mexico, which he says has cost the United States manufacturing jobs.

Faulconer disagrees, and will travel to Washington, D.C. next month in an effort to convince lawmakers that NAFTA has been a job creator at the border.

Im going to tell that story of how free trade works, of how our relationship with Mexico is a strength, of how were creating those good quality jobs, he said. If we dont tell our story of success, nobody is going to tell it for us.

Most of Faulconers remarks on Tuesday night outlined his model of the New California Republican.

The mayor wants his party to takea big-tent approach that encourages inroads into minority communities, focuses on infrastructure development and government reform, and preaches a moderate stance onimmigration and the environment.

Faulconer said those principals have allowed him to win two elections in the Democratic-majority city of San Diego.

I campaigned in communities Republicans wrote off as lost, and Democrats took for granted, he added.

But Faulconerreiterated that he will not run for Governor in 2018, reasoning that theres a lot of unfinished business and I love the job.

He wasnt willing to throw his weightbehind the two Republicans already in the race, Assemblyman Travis Allen, and San Diego businessman John Cox. Instead, it sounded like Faulconer will take on the role of recruiter before next Junes primary.

Im sure were going to have a lot of great candidates come out, he said. Ill be extolling some of my fellow Republicans to jump in.

Guy Marzorati is a producer for The California Report andKQED's California Politics and Government Desk. Guy joined KQED in 2013. He grew up in New York and graduated from Santa Clara University. Email: GMarzorati@KQED.org

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San Diego Mayor Pushes NAFTA and 'New California Republicans' - KQED

Two days after a woman was killed in Charlottesville amid clashes between white nationalists and counterprotesters, President Trump on Aug. 14 condemned racist groups such as the KKK, saying racism "has no place in America." (The Washington Post)

On Monday, after President Trumps grudging denunciation of neo-Nazis and white supremacists, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) released a statement:

The Presidents statement on Saturday was a direct reflection of the fact that his chief strategist, Steve Bannon, is an alt-right white supremacist sympathizer and a shameless enforcer of those un-American beliefs. In his long overdue statement today, President Trump called white supremacists repugnant to everything we hold dear as Americans. If the President is sincere about rejecting white supremacists, he should remove all doubt by firing Steve Bannon and the other alt-right white supremacist sympathizers in the White House.

From the beginning, President Trump has sheltered and encouraged the forces of bigotry and discrimination. President Trumps failure to immediately denounce white supremacy is well in line with the unmistakable conduct of his Administration toward immigrants, Muslims, and communities of color.

She concluded:It shouldnt take the President of the United States two days to summon the basic decency to condemn murder and violence by Nazis and white supremacists.

It is no longer impossible to imagine that Bannon might be forced to step down. When Pelsoi, Rupert Murdoch and conservative anti-Trump writer David French all agree that hes a drag on the president, perhaps he will finally return to Breitbart. French writes:

Theres a good reason that white nationalists rejoice at Steve Bannons proximity to power. Theres a good reason that countless Americans look at that man so close to the Oval Office and fear his influence on their presidents mind and heart. How can Trump look the American people in the face and say that he unequivocally condemns the alt-right when one of the men who did more than anyone else to enhance its influence works down the hall?

Whether it works or not, Republicans should join Pelosi. Republicans need to acknowledge an uncomfortable truth: Their party supported and still supports Trump, who feeds the monster of white resentment and who focuses their anger, fear and frustration on minorities.

[Why Trumps poll numbers are still in free fall]

The memes that immigrants are stealing our jobs; Christianity is a persecuted religion in the United States; Mexican immigrants are murderers; and millions of illegal immigrants voted in the election have given white nationalists rhetorical cover to propound their even more extreme racist views. Bannon and company have introduced in the Oval Office the blood and soil definition of nationalism, the suggestion that the mediais the enemy of the people and a nonstop attack on the truth. They refused to abandon a presidential candidate who attacked a federal court judge on the basis of race, for heavens sake.

More than a year ago, the New York Times reported:

In countless collisions of color and creed, Donald J. Trumps name evokes an easily understood message of racial hostility. Defying modern conventions of political civility and language, Mr. Trump has breached the boundaries that have long constrained Americans public discussion of race.

Mr. Trump has attacked Mexicans as criminals. He has called for a ban on Muslim immigrants. He has wondered aloud why the United States is not letting people in from Europe.

His rallies vibrate with grievances that might otherwise be expressed in private: about political correctness, about the ranch house down the street overcrowded with day laborers, and about who is really to blame for the death of a black teenager in Ferguson, Mo. In a country where the wealthiest and most influential citizens are still mostly white, Mr. Trump is voicing the bewilderment and anger of whites who do not feel at all powerful or privileged.

Trump and his apologists can deny until the cows come home that their intent was to stoke white racism, but in retrospect its clear that was to be the means by which Trump won the White House. Trump opened the door to assertions of white identity and resentment in a way not seen so broadly in American culture in over half a century, according to those who track patterns of racial tension and antagonism in American life, the Times reported. Dozens of interviews with ardent Trump supporters and curious students, avowed white nationalists, and scholars who study the interplay of race and rhetoric suggest that the passions aroused and channeled by Mr. Trump take many forms, from earnest if muddled rebellion to deeper and more elaborate bigotry.

[Trumps lasting legacy is to embolden an entirely new generation of racists]

This does not mean only racists supported Trump, nor does it mean that some of the positions he has taken have rationales not rooted in racism. But it is no longer deniable that Trumps campaign and presidency havebeen fueled by white resentment toward minorities.And now we have unbridled expressions of white nationalism, something about which Trump was warned:

His slow reaction angered his critics even more as they were in the knowledge that a range of authority figures had warned Trump of the threat that white supremacists posed months before James Alex Fields Jr. plowed his car into counter-protesters, killing Heather Heyer. An intelligence bulletin obtained byForeign Policy, entitled White Supremacist Extremism Poses Persistent Threat of Lethal Violence and dated May 10, shows that the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security briefed Trump as recently as May, at least indirectly, about the threat of the white supremacist movement and the threat of further attacks by members of this ultra-conservative group.

We assess lone actors and small cells within the white supremacist extremist movement likely will continue to pose a threat of lethal violence over the next year, thebulletinreads.

The FBI explicitly says in the briefing that white supremacists are to blame for the majority of domestic extremism. They were responsible for 49 homicides in 26 attacks from 2000 to 2016more than any other domestic extremist movement, the document states.

Not only have the security services warned Trump about the threat of white supremacists, but so too have his Democratic rivals and predecessors.

What did Trump do in response?Did he ignore a domestic terrorism threat because it undercut his political message?

And so we come to the present. Unless and until Trump is impeached, resigns or loses reelection, he and his brand of politics dominate the GOP. The only means to free itself of the yoke of Trump is to discard the personnel and policies that embody his white racial resentment ploy. With a unified voice, Republicanscan denounce the presidents alt-right advisers, the voting fraud commission (which itself is a fraud), the proposed pardon of anti-immigrant hero Joe Arpaio and other symbols of Trumps identification with white grievance. The GOP either rejects Trump or once and for all it sacrifices the Party of Lincoln to a ragtag band of white nationalists some more subtle than others but all an anathema to American democracy.

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Don't argue with Pelosi on this one, Republicans - Washington Post

The Congressional Budget Office weighed in Tuesday with another of its long-awaited analyses of aspects of repealing or tinkering with the Affordable Care Act. This time the topic is the ACAs cost-sharing reduction subsidies, which reduce deductibles and co-pays for the lowest-income buyers of health coverage on the exchanges.

The CBOs findings are timely because the so-called CSRs are the subsidies that President Trump continually threatens to withhold, as a tool for forcing Obamacare to implode. And, as expected, the CBO finds that canceling the subsidies would be a disaster but for Republicans favoring that approach, not Democrats.

Its conclusion is especially germane to the question of what congressional Democrats should trade in return for a GOP agreement to keep the CSRs funded. Earlier this month, healthcare analyst Avik Roy argued that Republicans should demand lots of concessions, including repeal of the individual mandate and enactment of premium-lowering regulatory reforms. Roy didnt specify these, but Republicans have talked about paring down the ACAs list of essential health benefits, such as maternity, hospitalization and prescription coverage, which are mandated to be offered by any qualified health plan.

The CBOs analysis, however, suggests that Democrats should take Michael Corleones approach from The Godfather, Part II. His line to a corrupt senator overplaying his hand was: My offer is this: nothing.

Obamacare supporters havent fully internalized this reality. The Democratic National Committee responded to the CBO report by quoting the agency as finding that if cost-sharing reduction subsidies were ended, millions of Americans would face skyrocketing premium increases of 20% by 2018 and 25% by 2020. Actually, the CBO didnt say that. The premium increases it cited were gross increases, not factoring in premium subsidies, which would reduce the actual impact in many cases to zero.

Health insurance expert David Anderson of Duke got it exactly right: Democrats have no reason to trade CSR funding for policies that they dont prefer, he observed. Inaction gives them an incredible policy victory. Conservatives are the ones who need to make concessions to fully fund CSR.

The fallout from CSR cancellation already is visible in early rate requests filed by insurers in several states. California insurers are seeking an increase averaging about 12.5% for next year but almost double that if the CSRs are ended. Those rates are pre-subsidy, and Covered California, which manages the states insurance exchange, said that the average buyer could avert all or most of the increases through the subsidy and smart shopping.

The CBO says its analysis is based on the assumption that CSRs would be paid through the end of this year, but not thereafter. If the scenario changes say the payments are cut off in midyear, after insurers already have set their annual premiums and signed up customers, the results could be more dire. In that event, however, Republicans would probably be blamed for the resulting market carnage, since it would be associated directly with GOP action.

Before we get into the counterintuitive details, a quick primer.

Cost-sharing reductions are offered to buyers in the individual market with incomes between 100% and 250% of the federal poverty limit. For a family of four, the eligible income range is $24,600 to $61,500. These subsidies are in addition to the ACAs premium subsidies, which cover those with incomes up to 400% of the poverty level, or $98,400 for a family of four. Unlike the premium assistance, which technically is paid to the policyholder, the CSRs are advanced to the insurers based on the co-pays and deductibles they would otherwise charge. About half of all buyers of ACA plans are eligible for the CSR assistance, and about 90% receive premium subsidies.

The subsidies this year are expected to come to $7 billion, to be paid to insurers covering 7 million customers. The subsidies are authorized under the healthcare act, but House Republicans filed a lawsuit in 2014 asserting that because the money hadnt been specifically appropriated, paying the money is illegal. They won the first round in U.S. District Court last year, but the judge stayed her ruling pending an appeals court decision.

Since his inauguration, Trump has dithered over whether to pay out the subsidies and continue fighting for them in court. On occasion, hes threatened to kill the payments as a bargaining chip to force Democrats to negotiate an Obamacare repeal. Periodically, the plaintiff and government lawyers have to return to the appeals court to ask for a three-month hold in the case; the next scheduled appearance is Aug. 20. Recently, 17 states and the District of Columbia won the right to step in to defend the CSR payments if the Trump administration tries to withdraw from the case.

The CBO found that canceling the CSR subsidies might drive some insurers out of the individual market because of uncertainty about the effects of the policy on average healthcare costs for people purchasing plans. Those facing higher deductibles and co-pays might be less inclined to buy coverage. Regions with about 5% of the U.S. population might end up with no insurers in the individual market next year, the agency said. But by 2020, enough insurers would return to the market that almost no one would be left without insurance availability.

Democrats should follow Michael Corleone's lead, and in return for continuing the cost-sharing subsidies offer Republicans "nothing."

Democrats should follow Michael Corleone's lead, and in return for continuing the cost-sharing subsidies offer Republicans "nothing."

Insurers would, however, raise premiums to compensate for the loss of subsidies for deductibles and co-pays. Its likely that insurers would load these higher premiums onto silver plans, the only plans that provide CSR subsidies. That would drive up gross premiums for silver plans by 20% next year, compared to their expected level without a policy change.

But because premium subsidies are tied to buyers incomes and rise as premiums rise, the subsidies would also increase in fact, more Americans would be eligible. The CBO reckoned that many silver-plan buyers receiving subsidies would pay net premiums similar to what they would pay if the CSR payments were continued. Some buying skimpier, bronze plans, would receive sufficient subsidies to cover premiums and some of their deductibles and co-pays too. The average subsidy would be greater, and more people would receive subsidies in most years.

The federal government, however, would take a hit. Over 10 years, the CBO said, canceling the CSR payments would increase the federal deficit by $194 billion. So much for the fiscally responsible Republican Party.

The picture could be materially different if Trump follows through on his threat to cancel CSRs immediately. Any decision to terminate CSRs after insurers had begun charging premiums based on continued CSR funding, the CBO said, would cause them significant financial losses. Some would leave the marketplace immediately, leaving their enrollees without coverage in the middle of the year and causing a spike in the ranks of the uninsured.

Is Trump prepared to explain the consequences to the public? Its doubtful. Many congressional Republicans know that for Trump to cancel the CSRs in midstream would hand them a poisoned chalice. Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), chair of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, told Roy he favors an affirmation by Trump of the CSRs at least through September, followed by congressional extension of the CSRs for one year. That would provide sufficient stability, Alexander said, to persuade the insurers to lower their rates.

Keep up to date with Michael Hiltzik. Follow @hiltzikm on Twitter, see his Facebook page, or email michael.hiltzik@latimes.com.

Return to Michael Hiltzik's blog.

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CBO confirms canceling Obamacare's cost-sharing subsidies would be a disaster for Republicans - Los Angeles Times

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. Voters headed to the polls on Tuesday to choose a permanent Senate successor to Attorney General Jeff Sessions, with both Republicans and Democrats locked in competitive primaries that may have to be resolved in a Sept. 26 runoff.

On the Republican side, a bitter and expensive campaign seemed to favor Sen. Luther Strange (R-Ala.), who was appointed to replace Sessions in February by a governor who later resigned in disgrace. Despite millions of dollars in ads, and tweets and robo-calls from a supportive President Trump, public polling had Strange in a dogfight with Rep. Mo Brooks (R-Ala.) and former state Supreme Court justice Roy Moore. In a Tuesday morning tweet, Trump reiterated that Strange will be great if sent back to the Senate.

I predict that President Trumps endorsement will be incredibly important because people want his agenda passed, Strange told Fox News before heading out to vote. I couldnt be more honored.

But in the final hours of campaigning, both Moore and Brooks attacked Strange as a pawn of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), whose Senate Leadership Fund and One Nation super PACs have spent more than $2.4 million to bail out the incumbent. At one of his final stops, at a sporting goods store in his north Alabama congressional district, Brooks lit into Strange as a dishonest and unethical candidate who had been captured by the political establishment.

[Past coverage: Alabama Gov. Bentley taps state AG Luther Strange to fill Senate seat vacated by Sessions]

In this neck of the woods, Luther Strange is getting the living daylights stomped out of him, Brooks said, as a supporter waved a campaign-provided banner reading DITCH MITCH. Were going to beat Luther Strange here two-to-one, or three-to-one, not just because they know me, but because they know that Luther Strange and Mitch McConnell have been lying to the state of the Alabama. And we dont like people who are dishonest with us.

Brooks, a flinty member of the House Freedom Caucus who frequently bucks his party leadership, had been the main focus of the SLFs attacks. The most damaging spots have played back year-old footage of Brooks, then a supporter of Sen. Ted Cruzs (R-Tex.) presidential bid, criticizing Trump; evidence, according to the SLF, that Brooks was on the same side as liberal Democrats.

The SLF only recently turned its guns on Moore, who gained national attention 20 years ago for fighting to display the Ten Commandments in his courtroom. In 2003, he was suspended from the court for refusing to remove a monument of the commandments; in 2016, after an improbable comeback, he was suspended again for refusing applications for same-sex marriage licenses.

[Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore suspended for defiance over same-sex marriage]

Tellingly, the attack ads against him skirt those controversies to portray Moore as a rip-off artist who added to his six-figure salary by starting a lucrative think tank. At his final campaign stop, speaking to the gun rights organization Bama Carry at a Chinese buffet restaurant in Birmingham, Moore referred to the attack ads as forces coming in from the north to buy your vote, and predicted that his grass roots support would carry the day.

The organization is better than Ive ever had before, said Moore. Money? Well, thats always less. Im being outspent ten-to-one.

The multiple David-and-Goliath stories have rallied some Alabama conservatives, who blame McConnell for Congress languid 2017 pace. In their final TV spots, Brooks displays an Aug. 10 tweet in which Trump blamed McConnell for the failure of the Affordable Care Act repeal push; Moores spot says flatly that McConnells Republicans lied about repealing ObamaCare.

In an interview at one of his final spots, Strange acknowledged that the narrow failure of the skinny repeal bill had depressed voters, even though hed cast his vote with McConnell and the president.

Theyre frustrated, I share their frustration, he said.

Public polling has suggested that the frustration will leave Strange well short of the 50 percent support needed to avoid a runoff. In five polls, conducted by news stations and Republican groups, Strange has never risen higher than 35 percent. The final poll, conducted by the Republican-friendly Trafalgar Group last week, found Moore at 38 percent, Strange at 24 percent, and Brooks at 17 percent. Five other Republicans, led by State Sen. Trip Pittman, came in at single-digit support.

Democrats, who have not won a Senate election here since 1992, see a rare opportunity if the Republicans nominate Moore, or if Strange wins but is dogged by scandal. The oddly-timed special election may depress voter turnout, with a general election not coming until Dec. 12.

But Democrats may have a runoff of their own. Doug Jones, a former U.S. attorney who prosecuted two conspirators in a 1963 bombing of a black church, has the support of party leaders, as well as national surrogates like Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.) and former Vice President Joe Biden. According to Jones, Biden had been urging him to make a statewide run for more than a decade.

Theres a real opportunity right now, because everything thats been proposed by the Republicans right now would be devastating for this state, Jones said in an interview at his Birmingham campaign office. Moving the election to December broke this wide open its allowed us to focus on one race, with an energized base, plus a group of independents and people who usually vote Republican, who say we need change, we need checks and balances.

The depleted state of Alabamas Democratic Party might complicate Joness bid. He jumped into the race in May, and has raised less than $200,000, which has helped fund radio ads, lawn signs, and a robo-call from Biden. But public polls, which his campaign disputes, have found him well short of 50 percent and running behind an African American military veteran, with little political experience, who happens to be named Robert Kennedy Jr. A poll from Birminghams WBRC TV station put Kennedy at 49 percent, knocking on the door of an outright primary victory.

The Kennedy campaign has given Democrats a queasy deja vu. As the party has collapsed in the deep South, several establishment-backed white candidates have run prudent primary campaigns, and lost to obscure black candidates who did little electioneering but had familiar-seeming names or appeared at the top of the ballot. In 2015, a truck driver named Robert Gray spent $50 to win the Democratic gubernatorial nomination in Mississippi. In 2010, more infamously, a troubled veteran named Alvin Greene won the partys nomination in a U.S. Senate race, defeating a judge and former state legislator.

Kennedy, unlike those candidates, has held public events, bought campaign ads, and worked in politics as a campaign volunteer and Capitol Hill staffer. In an interview, he said hed shaken hundreds of voters hands, and dispelled concerns that he was some sort of Republican plant.

Alabama voters can be completely comfortable knowing that we dont owe anybody anything, said Kennedy. My name might have gotten us some media attention, but our message is what got us to 49 percent in that poll.

Jones was confident of victory, or at least of making a runoff in which voters would be paying more attention to their candidates. Alabama Republicans, who during the Obama years drove Democrats to near-extinction, were operating as if the winner of their primary and runoff would glide toward victory. At his final rallies, Brooks said that voters really had a choice of whether to let the swamp choose who went to Washington, or whether to send a conservative disrupter to replace Jeff Sessions.

If its a Roy Moore and Mo Brooks runoff, there will be hell to pay in Washington, D.C., said Brooks at one rally, as the DITCH MITCH banner waved from the audience.

Read more at PowerPost

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Alabama Republican candidates court Trump voters in today's Senate primary - Washington Post

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) Three GOP candidates hoping to replace former Rep. Jason Chaffetz in Congress faced off Tuesday in a primary election after weeks trying to burnish their conservative credentials and fend off attack ads from deep-pocketed outside groups.

Chaffetz abruptly stepped down from his seat in June after making a name for himself as the Republican who relentlessly investigated Hillary Clinton and her emails while he was chairman of the House Oversight Committee.

His departure opened up a congressional seat in a district where Republicans outnumber Democrats five-to-one, offering voters and donors a choice between three candidates emblematic of the divisions roiling the GOP under President Donald Trump.

Moderate Utah Republicans have backed a popular mayor, John Curtis, who was once a Democrat and said he had strong moral concerns that kept him from voting for Trump.

Those further to the right have split their support behind Chris Herrod, a former state lawmaker known for strict immigration positions, and Tanner Ainge, a business consultant, first-time candidate and son of Boston Celtics president Danny Ainge.

Out-of-state organizations and political action committees have spent about $900,000 in Utah's race on top of about $600,000 in campaign contributions collected by the three Republicans running for Utah's 3rd Congressional District.

Outside spending of that magnitude is generally only seen in heavily Republican Utah when Democrats and Republicans face off in an occasional close race.

Early voter turnout was about 22 percent, and that number was expected to rise with polls open on Tuesday, said elections director Mark Thomas. Total turnout in the last primary, where Chaffetz was a popular incumbent, was about 33 percent.

Herrod, 51, and Ainge, 33, both voted for Trump, but all three candidates say they support the president's agenda including plans to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexican border, revamp the tax code and repeal the Affordable Care Act.

Curtis, the target of most of the out-of-state attack ads, has faced suspicion and criticism from some Republicans for his 2000 run as a Democrat for the state Legislature and his time leading a county Democratic party. The 57-year-old identifies today as a conservative Republican and points out that Ronald Reagan, Trump and Chaffetz were all Democrats at one point.

For Ada Wilson, a 59-year-old Republican homemaker from Orem, Curtis' stint across the aisle is one of the reasons she's voting for him. Wilson said it shows Curtis can work in a bipartisan way to get things done.

"I think he acknowledges that being Republican with an 'R' by your name does not automatically make you a keeper of all the answers," she said.

David Nelson, a pharmaceutical representative from Salem, Utah, said he thinks Curtis' Democratic past shows he's not a conservative. Nelson said it's OK that Ainge hasn't held public office, and he's voting for the younger candidate because of his "business-minded" outlook.

"I think that you don't have to have all the experience in the world to go to Washington and work for the people," he said. "You just have to be in tune with the pulse of the people."

Martin Wilkins, a 39-year-old UPS worker from Orem, said Ainge seems like a nice guy but is too young and inexperienced.

"In the political world, he's just a kid and no one is going to listen to him," Wilkins said. "If you go into college and a kindergarten student starts trying to order people around, no one is going to listen."

Wilkins said he voted for Herrod because seems like the kind of person who tells it straight, whether it's popular or not.

The winner coming out of Tuesday's race will face a well-funded Democratic opponent who initially jumped in to challenge Chaffetz earlier this year. Kathryn Allen socked away more than half a million dollars after she called out Chaffetz early this year for his comments suggesting people should spend money on health care instead of iPhones.

Chaffetz made a surprise announcement that he was resigning at the end of June, citing a desire to spend more time with family after eight years in Congress. He's since taken a role as a Fox News commentator and announced he will be one of six visiting fellows at Harvard University this fall.

His announcement made what would have been a quiet municipal Election Day in which counties were conducting their first mail-in voting into a more complicated affair, and there have been problems with unaffiliated voters receiving ballots that should have gone only to Republicans.

Election officials have explained that unaffiliated voters can vote in the primary if they come to the polls and register as Republicans on Election Day. Unaffiliated votes for Republican candidates won't be counted.

Several third-party candidates are also running in November, including Jim Bennett, the son of the late former U.S. Sen. Bob Bennett, a longtime Republican who lost re-election in 2010, the first of several GOP candidates ousted in tea-party fueled wave. Jim Bennett is running as the first candidate of a new centrist party, the United Utah Party.

Associated Press writer Brady McCombs contributed to this report.

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3 Republicans face off in Utah primary for vacant House seat - STLtoday.com