By Aidan Mortensen | KOAL News
As the 2026 midterm cycle gets underway, political parties across the Castle Country are preparing for caucus and convention nights to help determine delegates and party picks for the election.
With 125 allotted delegates, the Emery County Republican Party is seeking community involvement for their neighborhood caucus night on March 17 and their county convention on April 9.
“Every two years, we have our caucus night where citizens of a neighborhood get together and elect who they want to be both their state and county delegates,” explained Emery County Party Chair Jesse Sloan. “And then those delegates have the opportunity to interview the candidates and get to know them and make a decision as far as who’s going to be the convention-endorsed candidate going into the primary.”
With the races in Emery County shaping up to be a Republican-only affair, the county convention is one of the best opportunities to get involved in the electoral process. “The more people we can get out to come out to caucus, the more your voice will be heard … We want as many people as we can get running for these positions.”
On March 17, the party’s neighborhood caucus night will take place across the county, beginning at 7 p.m. This includes meetings at Huntington City Hall, Green River City Hall, Clawson Town Hall, Emery Town Hall, Cleveland Town Hall, Elmo Town Hall, Orangeville Elementary, Castle Dale Elementary, and San Rafael Middle School in Ferron.
Moving to the county convention, which takes place on April 9, Sloan explained what the voting process will look like: “We’re going to have some preprinted ballots at convention. If one person gets over 60%, they’re the automatic winner. But if somebody gets, let’s say, 55% and somebody gets 45%, or anything over 40%, then they’re both considered a convention winner, and they move on.”
Continued Sloan,” If the second person doesn’t get over 40% on the first ballot, then we’ll eliminate the last place, and we’ll revote. We generally give people five minutes of speaking time and then an additional minute per round after that. I could see us having a couple of multi-round races with some of these seats having three or more people running for them.
The convention coincides with the party’s Lincoln Day Dinner, with the dinner portion beginning at 5:30 p.m., followed by the convention at 7 p.m.
Additionally, in the lead-up to the convention, the party will host a public debate on March 31 at the Little Theater in Emery High School.
“We’re gonna be fielding questions from the public for the next month, and then we’re gonna try to consolidate those questions and fine-tune them a little bit and then hear what the candidates have to say about that,” shared Sloan. “So if anybody would like to submit a question for that, feel free to post it on our Facebook page for the Emery County Republican Party or send it directly to me at JesseSloanplumbing@yahoo.com.”
For the Emery County Republican Party, the 2026 election cycle kicks off countywide on March 17 with neighborhood caucus night, followed by the County Convention and Lincoln Day Dinner on April 9.