Utah Gov. Spencer Cox goes all in on Donald Trump after assassination attempt. 

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• Trent Nelson | Pool Photo
• Utah Gov. Spencer Cox takes questions from reporters at PBS Utah on Friday, July 19, 2024.

UNIVERSITY—Utah Gov. Spencer Cox confirmed Friday that he endorses and plans to vote for Donald Trump, shifting positions once again as the 2024 presidential election approaches and in the aftermath of an assassination attempt that nearly killed the former president.

Speaking to reporters during his monthly televised press conference at PBS Utah, Cox described feeling shaken by the news of a shooter at a recent Trump campaign event in Butler, Pennsylvania. He said he was moved to write a letter to the former president, offering his full support in the election and expressing a desire to help "lower the temperature" of political rhetoric.

"It was a very sobering moment," Cox said. "I spent the night distraught, worrying about our nation and what we’ve become."

Cox has been an outlier among elected Republicans during the now-eight years of Trump's control over the party. Cox declined to cast a vote for Trump during the 2016 and 2020 elections and criticized the former president's actions around January 6, 2021, in which Trump's refusal to accept the election results and participate in the peaceful transfer of power emboldened a mob of his followers to attack the U.S. Capitol, resulting in property damage, injuries and deaths.

Cox backed former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley during the Republican primary and earlier this month told CNN he would not be voting for Trump. Cox has also promoted a campaign to "Disagree Better," ostensibly fighting against the hyper-partisanship, flagrant falsehoods and take-no-prisoners aggression typical of Trump and his supporters.

Few American political figures disagree more poorly than Trump, who has mocked the victims of political violence while openly discussing his plans to seek vengeance and retribution against his "enemies," embracing tactics that violate democratic norms if not the plain language of the U.S. Constitution. The former president has also been found liable for sexual assault and guilty of fraud, and is facing dozens of criminal charges related to his efforts to overturn the 2020 election and his hoarding of classified documents after leaving the White House.

But Cox said Friday he believes the near-death experience of an assassination attempt will change Trump, and that he's spoken to people close to the former president who say Trump is newly committed to an inclusive, unifying message.

"I don’t know what it feels like to have a bullet graze my ear," Cox said. "I would have to think it would require some introspection, and clearly it has with him."

Salt Lake City Democratic Rep. Brian King—who is challenging Cox in the race for Utah governor—immediately criticized the endorsement, saying Cox had "kissed the ring" of a convicted felon and noting that Trump's Thursday speech accepting the Republican presidential nomination included calls for mass deportations and continued lies about the 2020 election.

"You deserve a governor who won't leave you wondering if today's the day he'll have the political courage to do what's right," King said, "or if he'll continue pandering to outside pressure, special interests, donors and extremists in his party."

• Trent Nelson | Pool Photo
• Utah reporters lob questions at Gov. Spencer Cox on Friday, July 19, 2024.

Cox said that Trump is all but certain to win Utah's vote, and he's more confident than ever that Trump will return to the White House in 2025, particularly as Democrats are divided over whether and how to proceed with their candidate, the 81-year-old incumbent president Joe Biden.

"I'm not naive enough to think it will be a total change," Cox said of Trump. "He’s a flawed person, I’m a flawed person. He’s a flawed candidate, I’m a flawed candidate."

On other topics, Cox declined to comment on Utah's partisan voting maps, which are newly under scrutiny following a unanimous decision of the state Supreme Court recognizing constitutional protections for citizen ballot initiatives. A majority of Utah voters in 2018 supported an initiative to create an independent redistricting commission, but lawmakers promptly gutted the law to make the commission advisory, then rejected the nonpartisan maps it had drawn in favor of maps that preserve Republican control of the state by diluting the urban vote.

He noted that the court's decision is specifically related to initiatives that alter the form of government—like the drawing of political boundaries—but is otherwise silent on policy questions, like the ballot initiatives that legalized medical cannabis and expanded Medicaid.

"There’s a lot that remains to be seen there," he said. "I’m concerned about he repercussions."

Cox also spoke about the 2034 Olympic Winter Games, which are expected to be formally awarded to Utah and Salt Lake City on July 24. He said that unlike 2002—when competition venues and an Olympic Village had to be built ahead of the games—the state is already in position to host the event. That means the question of preparation is less about what must be done, and instead revolves around what the state wants to build, both for the winter games and for its broader future.

"The transformation of dowtnown Salt Lake City is the biggest thing we could be working on right now," Cox said. "We want to make sure that we’re expanding transit wherever we can and maybe hastening some of those transit projects that would make sense."

Cox said the state has not yet discussed the role that federal dollars will play in preparing for the 2034 Olympics, but he expects those conversations to begin in earnest after Utah and the U.S. are formally selected as hosts next week.

"It’s the United States winning the Olympics," he said. "We get to represent this country to the rest of the world and, historically, the county has played a role in helping us to get ready."