Four women, three of them current elected officials, have accused Salt Lake City Councilwoman Eva López Chávez of making unwanted sexual advances, allegations that now shadow her Democratic primary campaign for Utah's 1st Congressional District. The women describe separate incidents between 2019 and 2022 in which López Chávez allegedly pinned them against walls, demanded kisses, and physically restrained them.
López Chávez, who has described herself as "a Mexican lesbian shaping downtown" and a "queer Latina," denied the allegations through her attorney. She did not respond to a request for comment from the Daily Caller News Foundation.
The accusations come from fellow Democratic officeholders and a former political aide, people who traveled in the same political circles as López Chávez before she joined the Salt Lake City Council in 2023. All four incidents allegedly occurred before she took office.
The earliest account comes from Maggie Regier, who said López Chávez had to be physically pulled off her during a 2019 fundraiser for the Human Rights Campaign. Regier said López Chávez had been "flirty" and was leading her around the event before pushing her against a wall. Regier has since moved away from Utah.
Regier told the Salt Lake Tribune that a candidate for Congress should face scrutiny for a pattern of behavior:
"If she wants to run for Congress, then she needs to be held to a behavioral standard. Especially if she's going to call out other candidates to be held to some sort of behavioral standard. And it's just this pattern of behavior."
Democratic Salt Lake City Councilwoman Victoria Petro, who currently serves alongside López Chávez, described a September 2022 party at which López Chávez allegedly pushed her against a wall and made an explicit sexual remark. The remark, as Petro recounted it: "The only reason I still f*** men is because a woman hasn't shown me what I really want."
Petro posed a question that cuts to the heart of how these allegations are treated. As the New York Post reported, she told the Tribune:
"If a man had done that to me, would there be a question if it was assault or not?"
It is a fair question, and one that rarely gets asked when the accused is a progressive woman running on identity politics.
Democratic state Sen. Jen Plumb described a November 2022 incident in which López Chávez pushed her against a wall and asked whether she was "sure" she wasn't attracted to women. Plumb said she initially dismissed the encounter but has since reconsidered. She told the Tribune that the incident "absolutely was a sexual advance."
Plumb's own reflection on why she brushed it off was candid:
"I've got to do some work on why I saw it that way, but I would not be comfortable with someone doing that to my daughter, to my mom, my best friends and I'm not comfortable with it being brushed away anymore."
The pattern of Democratic officials facing damaging personal revelations mid-campaign is not new. A New York Democrat recently exited a congressional race after disturbing social media posts surfaced, and voters are right to wonder whether party gatekeepers are doing any vetting at all.
The most specific allegations came from Democratic state Rep. Hoang Nguyen, who also runs a medical cannabis company and works in an investment group. Nguyen recounted a 2022 incident after a campaign event for Plumb. She said López Chávez asked her for a ride to her car, then asked her to pull over.
What Nguyen described next was not ambiguous:
"Next thing I know she has leaned over and she's on top of me, holding my shoulders down. I said, 'What are you doing?' And she said, 'Kiss me.' She said, 'I'm not going to get off you until you kiss me.' I gave her a peck and she got off."
Read that account again. A political figure physically restrains another person in a vehicle and refuses to let go until she receives a kiss. If a male candidate for Congress had been described doing the same thing to a female colleague, the story would lead every cable broadcast in the country.
The broader pattern of misconduct allegations dogging Democratic officials has become difficult to ignore. The Swalwell scandal and its widening fallout showed how reluctant the party can be to hold its own accountable, even when the accusations pile up.
Greg Skordas, the attorney representing López Chávez, told the Salt Lake Tribune that his client was ready to fight the claims. He framed the accusations as politically motivated, calling them "more personal and salacious" and describing them as "politics at its worst," the Washington Examiner reported.
Skordas said the incidents described by the four women "never occurred" and offered an unusual gesture:
"She is prepared to address them in any forum. She stands ready to submit to a polygraph test regarding these various allegations if requested."
A polygraph offer makes for a dramatic headline. But polygraph results are not admissible in most courts for good reason, they measure physiological responses, not truth. What the four accusers have provided are specific dates, settings, and detailed descriptions of physical conduct. Three of them hold public office and put their own names and reputations on the line by speaking on the record.
López Chávez, for her part, is pressing forward with her campaign. She did not qualify for the ballot through the signature-gathering process and instead faces a critical test at the Utah Democratic Party nominating convention, which could determine whether her bid survives at all.
The political left has spent years building an apparatus around the idea that women who come forward with allegations of sexual misconduct deserve to be believed. "Believe all women" was the rallying cry during the Kavanaugh hearings and beyond. The framework was supposed to apply universally, regardless of the accused person's party, gender, or sexual orientation.
Yet when the accused is a progressive woman running on her identity as a "queer Latina," the institutional response is notably quieter. No national Democratic leader has commented. No women's advocacy group has issued a statement. The silence is its own kind of answer.
The accusations against former Virginia Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax showed a similar dynamic years ago, multiple women came forward against a rising Democratic star, and the party's institutional machinery largely looked the other way. The pattern repeats because there is no cost for ignoring it.
Consider the details the four women described: pushing someone against a wall, making sexually explicit remarks to a colleague, physically restraining a person in a vehicle and refusing to release them until they complied with a demand for a kiss. These are not borderline situations that require parsing. They describe conduct that, if attributed to a Republican man, would produce wall-to-wall media coverage, calls for withdrawal, and demands for investigation.
Three of the four accusers are themselves Democratic elected officials. They are not opposition researchers or partisan operatives. They are women within López Chávez's own political world who decided to speak publicly despite the obvious professional risks.
Meanwhile, Democratic officials in other states have tried to keep personal misconduct hidden from voters. The instinct to protect the brand rather than protect the accusers runs deep.
Several questions hang over this story. No law enforcement agency, court, campaign committee, or ethics body has publicly confirmed receiving a formal complaint. The Salt Lake Tribune carried the women's accounts, and López Chávez's attorney issued a blanket denial, but no independent investigation has been announced.
It is also unclear whether the Utah Democratic Party will take any action before its nominating convention. López Chávez's path to the ballot runs through that convention, giving party leaders a concrete decision point. Will they treat these allegations the way they would treat identical accusations against a Republican? Or will they find a reason to look away?
The four women gave their names, described specific dates and places, and went on the record. The least their party can do is take them as seriously as it takes every other accuser who comes forward with a story like this.
Standards that only apply to the other side aren't standards. They're tactics.
