Republican state Rep. Jill Koford is running for the open Senate District 5 seat on her Great Salt Lake water and data-center legislation record.

Koford, who owns a graphic design company, is wrapping up her first House term and faces Democrat CJ Hernandez, a former U.S. State Department official, in the Nov. 3 election. The district spans parts of Weber, Davis and Morgan counties and includes Hill Air Force Base. The seat opened when longtime Sen. Ann Millner, a Republican and former Weber State University president, announced her retirement, as the Salt Lake Tribune reported in January.

In a Standard-Examiner candidate survey published Wednesday, Oct. 14, Koford listed three priorities: long-term water for the Great Salt Lake, tax relief and government accountability. She said she sponsored a $2.75 million water-leasing program that lets farmers temporarily send water to the lake while keeping their rights, a dedicated-water bill and a data-center transparency bill.

That leasing program, created by HB 410 in the 2026 legislative session, compensates farmers based on market data such as the five-year average price of alfalfa hay, according to the Utah House's summary of Great Salt Lake legislation. Split-season options let producers lease water for at least four weeks while continuing operations the rest of the year.

Koford also sponsored HB 76, which requires new large data centers to report expected and actual water use to the state before construction and annually after operations begin. The state must publish that data online, according to the Utah House.

"We really don't have any statewide guardrails for reporting and transparency," Koford told Grist in January when the bill was under consideration.

On taxes, Koford said in the Standard-Examiner survey that she worked on property-tax accountability and voted to cut income, Social Security and gas taxes and expand the child tax credit. She said families are being priced out of communities they grew up in.

During a Sept. 17 Great Salt Lake site visit organized by the Senate Majority Caucus, Koford told FOX 13 News she plans to introduce a bill in the 2027 session to get more cities and towns to dedicate conserved water to the lake.

Hernandez, in a Salt Lake Tribune candidate survey, said she would support reducing water use on state-owned properties and back incentives for agriculture and industry to send more water to the Great Salt Lake. She said she would oppose new water-intensive projects, including hyperscale data centers. Hernandez also said Koford voted to strip public workers of their right to collectively bargain, a claim Koford did not address in her survey responses.

Koford declined to answer.

She did not state her position on Constitutional Amendments A and B in the Tribune survey. Both candidates were raised in Weber County, according to the Tribune. Mail ballots must arrive at the county clerk's office by 8 p.m. on Election Day, Nov. 3, or be dropped at a drop box by the same deadline.