On September 16th, the Justice Department filed lawsuits against the chief election officers of Maine and Oregon. Later that month, it did the same in California, Michigan, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New York, and Pennsylvania. In January, at a conference of the National Association of Secretaries of State, Henderson denounced Dhillon’s contention that states needed federal help to clean up their rolls. (Dhillon had claimed that the D.O.J. had “found two hundred and sixty thousand plus dead people” on state registration lists.) “The things that have been said publicly, frankly, are quite appalling,” Henderson told a White House official, Jared Borg, in open session, adding, of Dhillon, “She’s pretty much slandered all of us.”
By the time Dhillon’s office filed suit against Henderson, on February 26th, the Justice Department had already lost three of the cases against state election officers. Henderson began to taunt the Trump Administration.
“0-8,” she posted on Threads on May 21st, after judges dismissed five more of the D.O.J.’s lawsuits.
“0-9,” she posted on June 22nd, when a Maryland judge did the same.
“Persistence in the face of defeat is usually an admirable quality, but not in this case,” she posted on July 14th, when the count was 0–13.
I asked Henderson one day why she had chosen this provocative tone.
“Am I provoking?” she replied, sounding a little annoyed. “Now, it’s interesting that the person bringing the conflict into the light, highlighting the injustice of the situation, the unconstitutionality and illegality of the situation to the public, is the one that’s considered provocative.”
Had other Utah Republicans urged her to turn down the heat? I asked.
“Not to my face,” she said.
Many of them, though, including the highest-ranking state legislators, criticized her for refusing to coöperate with the Trump Administration. Some, notably the former gubernatorial candidate Phil Lyman, accused her of being involved in election fraud. “I don’t think that her voter rolls can withstand scrutiny,” he told me. Others privately expressed fear that Henderson would provoke retaliation from the President, perhaps causing the state to lose pending federal grants to build nuclear power plants and to restore the Great Salt Lake.
For years, Henderson had told her staff that her No. 1 rule was “If it feels good, don’t say it.” She wanted to do her job and stay out of political combat. But that stance was changing. Utah’s governor, Spencer Cox, has said that he will not seek a third term in 2028, and Henderson told me that she is “seriously considering running.” I asked whether she thought her public conflict with Trump would hurt or help that campaign. “I have no idea, and I don’t care,” she said. “If discharging the duties of my office with fidelity means that I am unelectable in 2028, I am O.K. with that.”
Renae Cowley, a Republican political consultant who admires the lieutenant governor, said that she did not doubt Henderson’s commitment to principle but thought another consideration might also be on her mind. “I think that Deidre is strategically poking the bear, and it is both a brilliant political strategy and exactly what her voters want her to do,” Cowley said. “We’re Westerners for a reason,” she continued. “We wanted to be able to live our lives and do so free from the all-seeing eyes of the government. Of all the things to push back on, this is perhaps the most palatable, strategic, winningest issue that she could pick.”
