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This screen grab is taken from video of a forum conducted by former candidate for Utah governor Rep. Phil Lyman, R-Blanding, his running mate Natalie Clawson and Utah County Clerk Aaron Davidson on Friday, Nov. 22, 2024, in Orem.

Courtesy image

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Utah state Rep. Phil Lyman, a candidate for governor, addresses nearly 4,000 delegates at the Utah Republican Party Convention on Saturday, April 27, 2024, in Salt Lake City.

Hannah Schoenbaum, Associated Press

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Utah County Clerk Aaron Davidson speaks after taking the oath of office during a swearing-in ceremony held at the Utah County Historic Courthouse in Provo on Tuesday, Jan. 3, 2022.

Harrison Epstein, Daily Herald file photo

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Weeks after his write-in campaign for governor fell short, state representative Phil Lyman made it clear he won’t be going anywhere.

Lyman told his supporters in a forum at a crowded Chubby’s Cafe in Orem on Friday night that he intends on running for governor again in 2028, vowing to fight alleged corruption.

“We’re going to keep praying, and we’re going to keep working, and we’re going to stay vigilant on this, ” Lyman said. “I told the lieutenant governor’s office, I don’t know why I have to file as a write-in candidate, because I do plan on running in four years, and the truth is, I plan on fighting this fight on whatever front.”

Friday’s forum, dubbed “The Truth About Utah Elections,” acted as a recap of Lyman’s campaign, which saw him garner 13.57% of the vote as a write-in candidate to finish in third place behind Republican incumbent Spencer Cox and Democrat challenger Brian King.

Also speaking throughout the two-hour meeting was Lyman’s running mate, Natalie Clawson, and Utah County Clerk Aaron Davidson, who oversaw election results in Utah County.

Lyman won the state Republican convention in April but lost the GOP primary by a sizable margin to Cox after Cox made the ballot by garnering the necessary signatures.

Lyman, though, continues to doubt whether Cox actually got enough signatures and questions the validity of Cox’s primary victory. He petitioned the Utah Supreme Court to toss out the election results and remove Cox from office. The petition was denied, but he is appealing to the U.S. Supreme Court.

“We’ve got a little bit of an ax to grind on this whole thing,” Lyman admitted Friday. “When we asked to see the nominating petitions for Spencer Cox and we got such a nasty response, as a CPA myself, I said, ‘I believe that he does not have his signatures.’ Then I just started saying, ‘He doesn’t have his signatures, otherwise he would turn those over.'”

Lyman also claimed that, based on his own analysis, there were over 40,000 illegitimate primary votes for Cox.

“It’s based on some of the statistical things that we had seen and my own gut reaction of seeing the huge lead that he had starting that primary election on the initial dump, and then that lead slowly diminished over time. You would expect if someone’s going to get 60% of the vote, that over time, their 60% would hold, and they get more and more of a vote-count lead. That wasn’t happening.”

Lyman also noted that his 200,551 write-in votes were a United States all-time record, then took a jab KSL and Deseret News by saying neither of them wrote about the achievement.

He closed by thanking his supporters.

“We didn’t run for governor because we wanted to hold the office,” he said. “We ran for governor because we wanted to expose the corruption that was taking place in Utah, and we’ve done that in spades. And I’m so proud of what we’ve accomplished.”

Davidson, who had an eventful election cycle himself, ended up being the one who dominated most of the two-hour conversation, answering questions from Lyman and airing his grievances on a number of items.

He claimed that mail-in ballots are not “safe and secure” and lamented the signature verification process.

“They say voting by mail is secure because there’s signature verification,” Davidson said. “But that signature verification is very subjective.”

He also addressed the audit the lieutenant governor’s office conducted in Utah County after the primaries regarding signature verification, saying the state accused him of being “too strict,” in determining which signatures to approve, even though he felt “we were not as strict as Davis County in the Democratic primary.”

When Lyman him asked why he was getting audited and was being treated “unfairly,” Davidson said the state does not trust him because he’s questioned the validity of the election process.

“They keep saying that if you return your ballot through the U.S. mail, or drop box or in person, it’s all the same. ‘Don’t worry, you can choose whatever way you want.’ But that is not true. … If you return your ballot through the U.S. Postal Service, you are taking a risk,” he said.

Davidson also called Utah County Commissioner Amelia Powers Gardner his “nemesis” and addressed why he’s been so outspoken throughout the whole process despite his position, saying he has nothing to lose because he has no desire for a political career and is looking forward to retirement.

“If I don’t get reelected or if I get kicked out, it’s not going to hurt me. It’ll hurt the public,” Davidson said. “If I was wanting to make a career out of this, I would be less vocal because it is damaging my reputation a little bit personally. But I don’t care.”