Ex-Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney’s opposition to former President Donald Trump is well-established.
In 2020, Romney, the soon-to-be former U.S. senator from Utah, said he would “absolutely not” vote for the twice-impeached Trump over President Joe Biden, citing his foreign policy views and character, The Hill reported at the time.
So it wasn’t exactly breaking news this week when Romney, who will leave the Senate at year’s end, said he’ll once again be a “no” vote on Trump in this year’s presidential derby.
“I’ve made it very clear that I don’t want Donald Trump to be the next president of the United States,” Romney said during a speech at the Hinckley Institute of Politics at the University of Utah on Tuesday.
But just because Romney is leaving the Senate doesn’t mean he’s necessarily leaving politics.
The former Bay State chief executive said he wants “to continue to have a voice in the Republican Party following this election,” The New York Times reported. “I think there’s a good chance that the Republican Party is going to need to be rebuilt or reoriented.”
Romney said he believes he will “have more influence in the party by virtue of saying it the way I’ve said it,” which signaled he was stopping short of endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris.
“I’m not planning on changing,” he said.
Romney wrote in his wife Ann’s name in 2016, according to the Times.
In 2020, he confirmed he’d voted against Trump, but would not say if he’d voted for Biden, the newspaper reported.
On Tuesday, he quipped that his public opposition to Trump left his audience to “do the very difficult calculation of what that would mean” for his vote in 2024, the newspaper reported.
Republican strategist Doug Heye said he understood Romney’s calculation, pointing to Republicans, such as former U.S. Rep. Liz Cheney, of Wyoming, who have endorsed Harris.
“All of those now pro-Kamala voices will not be allowed back in,” Heye told the newspaper. “But there will be a G.O.P. post-Trump, and there should be some sane people remaining to fix that.”
