rorky.com

Rep. Chris Cannon, R-Utah, lost a bid for renomination to a seventh term Tuesday — making him the third sitting member of the House this year to fall to a primary opponent.
With all but one precinct reporting early today, Jason Chaffetz — a former Brigham Young University football player who has served as an aide to Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman — had defeated Cannon by 60-40 percent. Despite the landslide nature of Chaffetz’s victory, it did not come as a complete surprise: Chaffetz also bested Cannon by a 3-2 margin at last month’s Utah GOP convention, and came within a handful of delegate votes at that time of heading off a primary and winning the nomination outright.
Chaffetz, 41, will now face Democratic candidate Spencer Bennion, a former television reporter, in the general election in the state’s 3rd District, which stretches from the Salt Lake City suburbs into western Utah. But, given the overwhelmingly Republican and conservative nature of the constituency, Chaffetz is all but assured of being sworn in as a member of the House when the new Congress convenes in January.
From the standpoint of political demographics, Utah’s 3rd District stands in marked contrast to the two other districts - both in Maryland — that ousted incumbents earlier this year. The Washington, D.C. suburban district in which now-Rep. Donna Edwards, D-Md., ousted former Democratic Rep. Albert Wynn in the March primary is majority-black. And the district in which GOP Rep. Wayne Gilchrest lost renomination after almost two decades in office stretches from Baltimore to state’s Eastern Shore, and is regarded by the Democrats as a potential pickup opportunity this fall.
But the underlying cause of Cannon’s defeat was similar to that of Gilchrest and Wynn: All three of the defeated incumbents strayed from their respective party’s base on one or more key issues.

nationaljournal.com