Meet the USU professor running for Congress

Utah State University adjunct professor Eric Eliason has recently announced his decision to leave the classrooms of Huntsman Hall for a shot at the United States Capitol.

Eliason, born and raised in Southern Idaho, is running against Republican incumbent Rep. Rob Bishop to represent Utah’s 1st Congressional District in the United States House of Representatives.

Though his political views lean toward the Republican side, Eliason is running on the United Utah Party ticket. Created in April of 2017, the United Utah Party brands itself as a moderate party in the midst of “extreme partisan politics,” according to its website.

“We really feel like we represent the moderate majority,” Eliason said. “The general election has been pretty predetermined a lot of time, and what we have to say is ‘hey, there’s a new choice, a new way of looking at it, and your voice counts now.’”

After graduating from Brigham Young University and receiving his Master of Business Administration from the University of Pennsylvania, Eliason sought a career working in management for various businesses in Davis and Cache Counties.

Eliason has always taken an interest in politics – he studied finance and international relations at BYU, but never pictured himself as a politician until recently.

“In the 2016 election, we had Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump and I think for a lot of people they just didn’t match up on either side,” he said. Eliason added that in February of 2016, as the presidential race grew closer, he grew more disgusted with the political climate on both sides of the aisle.

“Like a lot of people, I hoped that somebody on a national level would come in and it would make sense,” he said. “I was watching the race pretty well, watching who was getting into it, and I was not liking a lot of what was going on.”

As he followed Bishop’s decisions and looked further into his campaign donors — the majority of which came from the casinos and oil and gas industries — he thought “wait, this is totally wrong, we need to change this.”

After talking with his wife and four children, he announced his decision to run on a platform of moderate policies on education, immigration and other issues.

“It was a little like jumping off a cliff into ice water making that decision,” he said.

Eliason added he has a strong disgust for what he sees as politicians being bought by special interest groups.

“It’s cyclical, special interests give to a campaign then they get some sort of benefit in return and it just cycles,” he said, referencing Bishop’s donation from the oil and gas industries as well as his views on little to no regulation of extraction on public lands.

His disgust for major corporate donations aligns heavily with that of the United Utah Party, which boasts campaign finance limits as one of its core beliefs.

Though he has no prior political experience, Eliason believes his business background has prepared him well for what he sees as issues that need to be resolved in Congress.

“When innovation matters, that’s something the federal government doesn’t have anymore, it’s slow and it’s bureaucratic,” he said.

Eliason also said he hopes to find a permanent solution for allowing Deferred Action for Childhood Arrival recipients to stay in the country.

“DACA recipients, they grew up here, they’re part of our culture, they’re contributors,” he said. “We’re in a very tight, hot economy in Utah, they’re an asset and a value/ They’re really a key part, and we do have to have mechanisms to have them involved.”

Eliason is facing six other candidates in the race to represent Utah’s 1st District, which includes all of Cache, Box Elder, Daggett, Duchesne, Morgan, Rich, Summit, Uintah and Weber Counties, and a portion of Davis County.

Challenging 16-year incumbent Rob Bishop are Democrats Lee Castillo and Kurt Weiland, Republicans Chadwick Fairbanks III and Kevin Probasco, Green Party candidate Adam Davis, and United Utah Party candidate Eric Eliason.

The primary election will be held June 26 and the general election Nov. 6.

More information is available at ballotpedia.org and there are video debates of some candidates on ezdebate.com. 

@Alison__berg
alisonberg28@gmail.com