Utah state Rep. Phil Lyman (R) said on Breitbart News Saturday that Gov. Spencer Cox (R) is more of a “Gavin Newsom 2.0” than a Republican.
Lyman hopes to unseat Gov. Cox, believing the current governor to favor Democrats more than the average Republican. Lyman said that Cox recently toasted Biden at the Gridiron Club dinner, an establishment dinner for national media outlets and correspondents.
“I don’t know why he has an R [Republican] next his name, honestly. In his state of the state address, it was like Gavin Newsom 2.0,” Lyman told Breitbart News Saturday host Matthew Boyle.
“It doesn’t resonate with Utah voters,” the Utah gubernatorial candidate said.
Lyman continued, “People are very confused by the governor, who thinks his job is do whatever President Biden wants and to fight Donald Trump. It’s bizarre.”
Lyman accused Cox of being aligned with President Joe Biden’s open borders agenda. The Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency in 2023 declared Utah a sanctuary state after three Utah counties terminated intergovernmental agreements with ICE.
Rep. Phil Lyman, R-Blanding, is shown on the floor at the Utah State Capitol, in Salt Lake City on Jan. 28, 2019. Lyman says he plans to introduce legislation that would require all clergy to report child abuse to authorities. Lyman’s proposal, announced Friday, Aug. 12, 2022, would eliminate the clergy-penitent privilege in a state where The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is the predominant religion. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer, File)
Lyman said Cox is in “lockstep on that whole agenda, which is to overwhelm the United States with illegal immigrants.”
The Utah gubernatorial candidate also accused Cox of having an overly aggressive coronavirus lockdown policy, which Lyman said helped the governor win the last gubernatorial election.
He said, “Spencer Cox is the only one that had any airtime. And he wins the governor’s race because he shut down his opponents.”
A poll released in March found that Lyman had a nine-point lead among Republican State Convention delegates, which Breitbart News’s Nick Gilbertson reported exclusively.
Gilbertson wrote, “The poll, conducted by TAG Strategies between March 14-20, found 43 percent of verified delegate respondents support Lyman in the hypothetical two-way matchup, putting him nine points ahead of Cox, who registers at 34 percent. Another 16 percent are unsure who they would support, while six percent would support another candidate.”
Breitbart News Saturday airs on SiriusXM Patriot 125 from 10:00 A.M. to 1:00 P.M. Eastern.
Sean Moran is a policy reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter @SeanMoran3.
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