Four Women Accuse Lesbian Running For Congress In Utah Of Unwanted Sexual Advances
Four women have come forward to say a Utah Democrat running for Congress made unwanted advances of a sexual nature.
Democrat Eva López Chávez is a Salt Lake city councilwoman running in her party’s primary to represent Utah’s 1st Congressional District. The accusations, including that she “restrained” women while making unwanted sexual advances toward them, allege that the incidents occurred before López Chávez joined the city council in 2023. Three of the women who came forward currently hold elected office, including one who serves on the city council with Chavez, the Salt Lake Tribune reported.
Salt Lake City Councilwoman Eva Lopez Chavez, now a Democratic congressional candidate, once described herself as “a Mexican lesbian who is shaping downtown.”
She now faces allegations from four women, including three elected officials, who claim to have held them back during advances… pic.twitter.com/U1WkvaNC7a
– Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) April 23, 2026
“If a man had done this to me, would he question whether it was assault or not? » Democratic Salt Lake City Councilwoman Victoria Petro told the Tribune. Petro said López Chávez, an open lesbian who describes herself as a “queer Latina,” pushed her against a wall at a party in September 2022 and told her, “The only reason I still fuck men is because a woman hasn’t shown me what I really want.”
Utah Democratic state Sen. Jen Plumb said she initially dismissed an incident in November 2022 when López Chávez pushed her against a wall and asked if she was “sure” she wasn’t attracted to women.
“I have to work on why I saw it that way, but I wouldn’t be comfortable with someone doing that to my daughter, to my mother, to my best friends and I’m not comfortable with it being brushed aside,” Plumb told the Tribune, saying López Chávez definitely made “a sexual advance.” (RELATED: Eric Swalwell drops out of gubernatorial race).
Utah Democratic state Rep. Hoang Nguyen, who also runs a medical cannabis business and works at an investment group, recounted a 2022 incident in which she and López Chávez left a campaign event for Plumb. López Chávez asked Nguyen to take him to his car before asking him to stop, the state lawmaker told the Tribune.
Eva Lopez Chavez (Eva Lopez Chavez for the Congress Facebook page)
“The next thing I know, she’s leaned over and she’s on top of me, holding my shoulders down,” Nguyen said. “I said, ‘What are you doing?’ And she said, ‘Kiss me.’ She said, “I’m not going to let you go until you kiss me.” I gave her a kiss and she went downstairs.
The fourth woman, Maggie Regier, said López Chávez had to have himself removed from her during a 2019 fundraiser for the Human Rights Campaign, noting that López Chávez had been “flirty” and leading her on before Regier was pushed against the wall. A friend of Regier’s separated the two, and Regier has since left Utah.
“If she’s going to run for Congress, then she needs to be held to standards of behavior,” she told the Tribune. “Especially if she’s going to call on other candidates to conform to some sort of standard of behavior. And it’s just that pattern of behavior.”
López Chávez, who has denied the allegations, did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the Daily Caller News Foundation.
“She’s willing to address them in any forum. She’s willing to submit to a polygraph test regarding these various allegations if asked,” Greg Skordas, an attorney representing López Chávez, told the Tribune.
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