Early unofficial returns Tuesday night in the primary election for Salt Lake City Council seats indicate that challengers to two incumbents have a lot of ground to make up, while two front-runners have emerged in the two open races.
After Salt Lake County’s count of the mail-in votes received before Tuesday’s primary, Councilwoman Erin Mendenhall had received 76 percent of the vote in District 5, and James Rogers had 78 percent in District 1, though their challengers in the November general election were far from decided.
Third-time candidate Phil Carroll (33 percent) and attorney Chris Wharton (32 percent) had fairly evenly split about two-thirds of the vote in Salt Lake City’s District 3 race, with Laura Cushman (20 percent) trailing Wharton by nearly 500 votes.