Sen. Mike Lee writing a book about his criticism of political compromise

The book from HarperCollins will publish in 2026, according to the Utah senator’s financial disclosure.

(Mark Schiefelbein | AP) Committee chairman Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, speaks during a hearing of the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources on Capitol Hill, Thursday, July 10, 2025, in Washington.

Utah’s Sen. Mike Lee has consistently ranked among the members of the Senate whose ideology is furthest to the right. And in recent years, he has taken to labeling leaders who find compromise across the political aisle as members of “The Uniparty.”

Lee is writing a book about the so-called “Uniparty,” set to publish next year.

The senator has described the term, which didn’t originate with him, as criticizing “uniformity” rather than “bipartisanship.”

“Very often the uniformity is marked by a collusive agreement between the elected leaders of the two political parties in the two chambers,” Lee told the Deseret News last year, saying he often sees it in the passage of spending bills.

But more recently, he’s used the word to describe what he sees as cross-partisan efforts to undermine a conservative agenda he believes voters support — from trade policy, to immigration reform proposals, to gestures of support toward minority religious communities by state legislatures.

According to Lee’s annual financial disclosure, filed Tuesday evening, he reached an agreement with the publishing company HarperCollins last December to write the book. It’s scheduled to hit shelves in June 2026.

Lee has written several published books, and financial disclosures indicate that in recent years, royalties from those books have been his main source of income outside of his $174,000 Senate salary.

HarperCollins’ website refers to the forthcoming book simply as “The Uniparty,” and says “cover coming soon.” Sales begin in February, it says.

“It’s an unfortunate thing that The Uniparty,” Lee posted two weeks ago, adding on the trademark emoji as he typically does when using the term, “often hands Democrats a victory — even in rare moments like these when Republicans control both houses of Congress and the White House.”

The Senate had recessed for the rest of the summer without pushing through dozens of President Donald Trump’s nominations amid a stalemate between Republicans and Democrats over the White House freezing certain agencies’ funding, Politico reported.

That decision by Senate Majority Leader John Thune, Lee wrote, leaves “Trump with significant portions of the U.S. government under the control of Deep State Democrats.”

(Bethany Baker | The Salt Lake Tribune) U.S. Senator Mike Lee takes a photo with an attendee during the State Organizing Convention for the Utah Republican Party at Utah Valley University in Orem on Saturday, May 17, 2025.

Senators on the left have been the target of Lee’s “Uniparty” accusations, too.

Sen. Bernie Sanders, an independent from Vermont who caucuses with Democrats, posted a video last month calling for “comprehensive immigration reform, not mass deportations.” Lee criticized the message, writing, “‘Comprehensive immigration reform’ = Uniparty code for ‘amnesty.’”

While perennial presidential candidate Ralph Nader made the term more commonplace in the political sphere in the early 2000s, former Trump strategist Steve Bannon popularized it among conservatives as the president entered his first term in office.

The world’s richest man and former Trump adviser Elon Musk, referenced the term when he broke with Republicans to form his “America Party” over opposition to the administration’s core budget bill.

“Our country needs an alternative to the Democrat-Republican uniparty so that the people actually have a VOICE,” Musk posted on his social media platform X.

Lee and Musk have historically been close allies. The senator, who posts prolifically on X, most often engages with Musk’s account, The Salt Lake Tribune found.