Tryon runs for Congress again, this time as Democrat

By Rick Sherman

Stephen P. Tryon wants to be a member of Congress and is running on his résumé and his ideas for Utah’s Third District as a Democrat.
He earned his Bachelor’s Degree at West Point and his Master’s Degree from Stanford. He spent 22 years in military service, retiring as a lieutenant colonel, and was a Senior Executive at Overstock.com for ten years.
Tryon has never held political office, but was an independent candidate for Utah’s Third Congressional District seat in 2014. He garnered just 1.8 percent of the vote in that election, but is running for the office again as a Democrat. Tryon believes the party affiliation will help his campaign because, “It’s given me organization that I didn’t have and I wasn’t able to get.”
In an interview with the Sun Advocate Tryon declared, “I am an advocate for the people, and I will be an advocate for the constituents of the Third Congressional District. If you live in a town in the Third District, you’ve got my attention. I won’t be blaming the federal government for things that are going on. I’ll be actively involved in trying to fix things.”
Tryon criticized incumbent Congressman Jason Chaffetz for supporting Republican Presidential candidate Donald Trump. “There’s no way that I can respect anyone for endorsing Donald Trump as President of the United States. And if Jason is entertaining that as something he’s thinking of doing, then I would just say, it’s the same old Jason and that’s the reason I am running against him. I don’t think he’s got the public’s best interest at heart. Donald Trump- he scares me. I don’t think he’s fit to be President of the United States,” Tryon averred.
The Democratic candidate said his top priorities are education, economy and, “the last and probably the most contentious thing I am advocating for, is on the environment.” He said, “It bothers me greatly that we have a Congressman who says that global warming is a farce. Fixing that is not going to be easy and it’s not going to be fun. But we’re not making things any better by lying to ourselves or to our constituents about it. It’s a problem, it’s a real problem and we’ve got to start addressing it. The ethical thing to do is to start having that conversation today, and if that means that people in Carbon County aren’t going to vote for me then I regret that, but it’s my duty to tell you what I see and what I think.”
Tryon proposes getting federal dollars to establish a research center on climate change in Price. “We should put it in the community that’s going to be most impacted by trying to shift away from carbon, and we should use that as a way of helping shelter the economy and helping provide a bulwark against this transition.”
He said we have to expand solar, wind and nuclear power. “I think nuclear is an option that we have to keep on the table because it provides a lot of energy and it doesn’t create the carbon problem,” he stated, while acknowledging, “We haven’t figured out how to reduce the waste stream. We have to research it.”
“So what I’m calling for is a twenty-first century ‘Manhattan Project,’ and I think the headquarters should be Price, Utah,” he continued. Tryon said the research center can address all kinds of things, including cleaner burning coal, nuclear waste disposal, expanding solar and wind power, and mitigating the effects of climate change.
In November, Tryon will face the winner between incumbent Jason Chaffetz and the challenger in the Republican primary, BYU professor Chia-Chi Teng. Tryon said he has challenged Chaffetz and Teng to debate the issues but so far, neither candidate has responded.