The Utah Republican Party has a new chairman and its Robert Axson. (photo: Dan Bammes)
SALT LAKE CITY — With the Utah Republican Party Convention set for next weekend at Utah Valley University, Robert Axson is the only candidate running and likely the new Utah GOP chair.
Axson will likely become party chair after Mike Bird withdrew from the race.
If Axson is approved, he will be acknowledged in his new role at the state convention by acclamation.
Currently, Carson Jorgensen holds the position.
On Friday, Axson joined Inside Sources with guest hosts Taylor Morgan and Derek Brown to discuss his vision for the party.
Axson is asked right away, “So why would you do this?”
“I think at the end of the day,” Axson said. “Anytime that somebody steps up to do what is a volunteer effort to build community, to build a future that our kids and our families deserve to live in, you do it right in a way where it’s not about you. It’s about the people you’re working with.”
Axson says he’s not in it for the name recognition.
“If we do it right, and the vision of what I want to accomplish over these next couple of years,” he said. “Are things that five years from now, I’m fine if nobody remembers my name, nobody remembers that I was the party chair. I want them though to see the Utah Republican Party doing things that they can buy into that they can be proud of.”
Brown asked, how do you intend to bring the competing parties within the Republican Party together?
Axson compares this to a dinner table. And often times, there are arguments or disagreements around the table about any number of things. Among those arguments are getting children to eat their vegetables, Axson says.
“But there’s a table that’s set and that table experience creates that safety for families to engage and to have differences,” he said. “And have shared experiences.”
He says the problems of the Republican Party in the past has been like a family without a dinner table.
Axson is asked “Tell me what do you expect your relationship to be like with the Democrat Party chair?”
“I think it would be unreasonable to think that there would be 100 percent disagreement,” Axson said. “Even with a party that I disagree with politically because at the end of the day, we’re all Utahns.”
Axson says he is hopeful there will be areas of shared agreement with the Democrat Party. That can be worked on together by both parties to make the state better.
Listen to the full segment.
Inside Sources with Boyd Matheson can be heard weekdays from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. on KSL NewsRadio. Users can find the show on the KSL NewsRadio website and app.
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