Nate Blouin (D), Ben McAdams (D), and four other candidates are running in the Democratic primary for Utah's 1st Congressional District on June 23, 2026. As of April 2026, Blouin and McAdams led in fundraising and local media attention.

The race is taking place in the context of redistricting ahead of the 2026 elections. On November 10, 2025, Judge Dianna Gibson ordered the adoption of a new U.S. House map after she ruled the process used to adopt the previous map was unconstitutional. Inside Elections with Nathan L. Gonzales' Nathaniel Rakich said, "[u]nder the new map, Utah’s 1st District is now a Democratic-leaning seat that covers most of Salt Lake County. Former Vice President Kamala Harris would have carried it by 24 percentage points in the 2024 presidential election."

The Salt Lake Tribune's Robert Gehrke said the race is "revealing the divisions within the Democratic Party, between the largely older, moderate pragmatists and the rising generation of progressive idealists inspired by the likes of Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani." Local radio station KUER quoted Weber State University professor Leah Murray as saying, "There's not a lot of [policy] difference between these people...So the answer is, I have to show some difference between me and the other people in my party, right?"

Blouin was elected to the Utah Senate in 2022. Before running for office, Blouin worked as a renewable energy advocate. Blouin's campaign website says he is "proud of being labeled a 'punk' after standing up to Republican leadership and getting his mic cut off on the Senate floor on numerous occasions...we’re not going to beat Donald Trump and the billionaires buying influence in Washington unless we’re willing to fight."

McAdams is an attorney and represented Utah's 4th Congressional District from 2019 to 2021. The district lines of the 4th District during McAdams' term overlapped with the lines of the new 1st District. McAdams served as Salt Lake County Mayor from 2013 to 2019 and in the Utah Senate from 2008 to 2012. McAdams says he is running "because what’s happening in Washington isn’t working for people."

Also running in the primary are Michael Farrell (D), Eva Lopez Chavez (D), Liban Mohamed (D), and Luis Villarreal (D).

The Democratic Party of Utah will hold its nominating convention on April 24-25, 2026. In order to appear on the primary ballot, candidates needed to either submit 7,000 petition signatures or advance from the convention vote. If one candidate wins more than 55% of the convention vote, that candidate will advance. If no one candidate wins more than 55% of the convention vote, the top two finishers will advance. As of April 20, 2026, Blouin and McAdams had submitted the required 7,000 signatures to advance to the primary ballot regardless of the convention results. As of April 15, 2026, Farrell, Lopez Chavez, and Mohamed said they had also collected enough signatures to advance.

As of April 2026, major election forecasters rated the general election Solid/Safe Democratic.