From the very outset of his launch video that has been seen over 1 million times, Mayor Staggs called out the broken promises Mitt made in 2018, and articulated the reasons why he would take him on. He did the same in an opinion piece back in June 2023 titled, Enough is Enough: Why I’m Going to Replace Mitt Romney. Staggs’ relentless calling out of Romney’s record across multiple media outlets, took Romney from about 50% in favorability in the polls when Staggs first launched his campaign in May 2023, to around 30% by the time Mitt threw in the towel and said he wouldn’t run again in September 2023. No other candidate in this race was willing to call out Romney, nor challenge him, and waited until he declared he was not going to seek re-election, proving Staggs is not afraid to take on the establishment.

While other candidates waited until President Trump had won his first primaries in 2024, Trent Staggs proudly endorsed him last August in an opinion piece in the Washington Times. No other candidate had the courage to endorse President Trump - or say which candidate they would even back, falling back on the milquetoast line “I’ll support the nominee."

 If you send Trent back to Washington, he will be one of the president’s staunchest allies.

Being one of the very few elected officials in the entire state who consistently called out higher layers of government for unconstitutional practices from limiting gatherings to no more than 10 people back in March 2020, where Staggs told his police not to enforce nor prosecute, to telling the world he would not enforce the mask mandate pushed down by the state and county back in June of 2020. Staggs ALWAYS kept his city open, unlike the overwhelming majority of cities in the state. His city hall always remained open and he held his council meetings in person, not just online. In August of 2021 he called out the illegitimacy of the SLC Mayor’s mask mandate, and repeated his pledge to never impose one in Riverton. In November of 2021 he took on the Federal Government’s attempt to enforce vaccine mandates through OSHA for any company that had more than 100 employees - which would have impacted Riverton City. He’s called out repeatedly the ineffectiveness of mask mandates, and galvanized support to overturn the SL County mask mandate of January 2022. More recently in 2023, when talk of mandates surfaced yet again, Staggs led out in saying he would never impose one.

From organizing efforts in the southwest SL County to decrease the massive densities of the Olympia Hills project, to more recently passing a resolution opposing the legislative state auditor’s misguided report on housing policy that called for top-down control like in California. Staggs has always called for local control of zoning and housing policy, fighting the interests of the state legislature.

He supported prop 1 in 2015 to prevent additional sales taxes for transit, fought against SB136 in 2018 that allowed counties to circumvent the voters who voted against Proposition 1 and pass the tax hike anyway, and joined the referendum effort in late 2019 against increasing the sales tax on food, that the state legislature passed with SB2001 in December 2019 raising taxes by some $475 million on Utahns. His leadership and innovation in Riverton has created the lowest taxes and fees in the valley, and his leadership allowed Riverton to get out of the countywide taxing district that paid for law enforcement, and brought it under local control, saving tens of millions for Riverton residents.

Mayor Staggs has always fought for the unborn and recognized the sanctity of human life, authoring a resolution to support human life back in 2019 with his city council.

Mayor Staggs recognized early on the insidiousness of ESG and authored a resolution that prevents Riverton City from working with organizations that espouse it.

Mayor Staggs called out the Jordan School District for allowing inappropriate materials in its school library, and worked with lawmakers and the district to revise its policy and allow these materials to be removed from school libraries.

Mayor Staggs was the only one in this race that called out the fact that Utah had been designated a Sanctuary State by ICE, and called on state leadership to correct the problem.