Lieutenant Governor [[Gary Herbert]], Republican, inherited the governorship after Governor [[Jon Huntsman, Jr.]] resigned to serve as U.S Ambassador to [[China]]. In a state that has not elected a Democrat Governor since 1980, Herbert was elected to a full term.
== 2010 Midterm elections and anti-abortion laws ==
The New York Times in a news article about [[Roe vs. Wade]] entitled ''How Did Roe Fall: Before a Decisive Ruling, A Powerful Red Wave'' stated:
{{Cquote|The beginning of the end of Roe v. Wade arrived on election night in November 2010.
That night, control of state houses across the country flipped from Democrat to Republican, almost to the number: Democrats had controlled 27 state legislatures going in and ended up with 16; Republicans started with 14 and ended up controlling 25. Republicans swept not only the South but Democratic strongholds in the Midwest, picking up more seats nationwide than either party had in four decades. By the time the votes had been counted, they held their biggest margin since the Great Depression.
There had been a time, in the 15 years after Roe, when Republicans were as likely as Democrats to support an absolute right to legal abortion, and sometimes even more so. But 2010 swept in a different breed of Republican, powered by Tea Party supporters, that locked in a new conservatism. While Tea Party-backed candidates had campaigned on fiscal discipline and promised indifference to social issues, once in office they found it difficult to cut state budgets. And a well-established network was waiting with model anti-abortion laws.
In legislative sessions starting the following January, Republican-led states passed a record number of restrictions: 92, or nearly three times as many as the previous high, set in 2005.
The three years following the 2010 elections would result in 205 anti-abortion laws across the country, more than in the entire previous decade.
“A watershed year in the defense of life,” Charmaine Yoest, at the time president of the anti-abortion group Americans [[United for Life]], proclaimed when the sessions were over, noting that 70 of the laws — restrictions on abortion pills and hurdles for women getting abortions and clinics providing them — had adopted the group’s model legislation. “And that is just the beginning.”<ref>[https://archive.ph/DKB2b#selection-377.0-553.33 ''How Did Roe Fall: Before a Decisive Ruling, A Powerful Red Wave''] by Kate Zernike, New York Times, June 25, 2022</ref>}}
==Further reading==