Senator Mitt Romney of Utah, the 2012 Republican nominee for president who made a historic break with his party when he voted to remove former President Donald J. Trump from office, announced on Wednesday that he would not seek re-election in 2024, saying he wanted to make way for a “new generation of leaders.”
He strongly suggested that Mr. Trump, 77, and President Biden, 80, should follow his lead and bow out to pave the way for younger candidates, arguing that neither was effectively leading his party to confront the “critical challenges” the nation faces.
“At the end of another term, I’d be in my mid-80s. Frankly, it’s time for a new generation of leaders,” Mr. Romney, 76, said in a video statement. “They’re the ones that need to make the decisions that will shape the world they will be living in.”
The announcement was in some ways the culmination of a long divergence between Mr. Romney, a genteel and wealthy former governor and traditional conservative, and the Republican Party, which has veered sharply to the right and embraced a coarser brand of partisanship in recent years.
Elected to the Senate in 2018, Mr. Romney has occupied a lonely space in a Capitol where a majority of Republicans remain loyal to Mr. Trump — or at least refuse to break with him. Mr. Romney has joined an array of bipartisan “gangs” seeking to take on major policy issues — including infrastructure, gun safety and overhauling the Electoral Count Act — but rarely sought to lead those efforts.
In the video, Mr. Romney said that neither Mr. Biden nor Mr. Trump, the current front-runner for the Republican nomination, was addressing the nation’s most critical challenges, including climate change, authoritarian threats from Russia and China and mounting debt.
“Both men refuse to address entitlements even though they represent two-thirds of federal spending,” he said. “Donald Trump calls global warming a hoax, and President Biden offers feel-good solutions that will make no difference to the global climate. On China, President Biden underinvests in the military, and President Trump underinvests in our alliances.”
“The next generation of leaders must take America to the next stage of global leadership,” he added.
The statement came amid renewed scrutiny of the age of Mr. Biden and other prominent elected officials including Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, 81, the longtime Republican leader whose recent health issues have raised questions about whether he is fit to continue in his post. Editors’ Picks MTV Video Music Awards: 5 Memorable Moments Why Are So Many Millennials Going to Mongolia? My Disabled Colleague Is Struggling at Work. Am I Responsible for Her Care? SKIP ADVERTISEMENT
Mr. Romney, who describes his career in politics as a moral mission driven by his Mormon faith, has in recent years been marginalized in a party that has shifted to the right under the sway of Mr. Trump. In the Senate, he never emerged as a leader of any faction or committee, even as he was regarded as a reliable, common-sense vote.
He hinted that he might still have some role to play in the nation’s political discourse, saying, “I’m not retiring from the fight.” He said he planned to finish out his term, which ends in January 2025.
Utah is a solidly Republican state, so Mr. Romney’s departure is highly unlikely to affect the balance of power on Capitol Hill. He had recently told people that he planned to make a decision about seeking re-election by the end of the year and that he was weighing whether he could still play any productive role in Congress. Mr. Romney was also cognizant that he would face a tough primary fight if he decided to run again.
His decision to abandon a career in the Senate followed similar decisions from many moderate House Republicans last year. In the 2022 midterm elections, four House Republicans who voted to impeach Mr. Trump declined to run for re-election.
Mr. Romney had also begun to stir speculation that he was ready to move on from the Senate when he agreed to participate in a biography set to be published next month by Scribner, titled “Romney: A Reckoning,” by McKay Coppins, a staff writer at The Atlantic. In the book, Mr. Romney is said to quote his colleagues by name in discussing how Republican lawmakers really view and talk about Mr. Trump in private when the former president is not present.
Mr. Coppins is said to have conducted hours of interviews with Mr. Romney for the book, and was given access to the senator’s emails and his diary. The book’s impending release already has his colleagues concerned about their private thoughts and conversations regarding the party’s vengeful presidential front-runner being aired publicly.
Mr. Romney has also appeared increasingly concerned about the likelihood that Mr. Trump would emerge as his party’s nominee.
In a recent opinion piece in The Wall Street Journal, Mr. Romney implored donors and Republican candidates to unite around an alternative to Mr. Trump, for fear of delivering him the party’s nomination, writing that “donors who are backing someone with a slim chance of winning should seek a commitment from the candidate to drop out and endorse the person with the best chance of defeating Mr. Trump by Feb. 26.”
We are entering dark fucking times when Mitt Fucking Romney is becoming the voice of reason in the American political landscape.
This is the problem. The moderate Republicans that didn’t support Trump are looking at retirement. They are marginalized in their party. The replacements likely will be further right.
The country did far better when you have moderate and capable leadership on both sides.
When was that exactly? I don’t see anybody from Reagan on that I would consider a “moderate” on the Republican side.
It’s a false equivalence. Trump isn’t unfit just because he’s old.
Edit: reading comprehension, folks
It’s also not about unfit. Being old means you don’t have to care what happens to future generations- you’ll be dead by then and you can leave a wealthy inheritance for your brats to squander after you’re gone. Making decisions that you’ll never have to face the consequences of.
Sure but the point is it lessens the awful crimes of Trump by saying “they both suck”.
Jesus Christ. When Mitt Romney starts looking progressive you fucked up.
This is the Republican game for the last 3 decades. Field shitter and shitter candidates so people can reminisce how inclusive W was… How upstanding Romney was… Meanwhile if you actually lived through these people’s tenure you’d know how vile and disgusting all of them are/were.
I’m waiting for people to reminisce about how smart Trump was compared to insert next nutjob Republican
The ACA was an adaptation of Romney’s healthcare plan for Massachusetts.
The Overton window is so fucked it should start an OnlyFans.
What in the fuck, I would have never guessed Mitt was 76 years old. He looks a generation younger than Trump/Biden/McConnell, not their peer.
Overall I disagreed with Mitt a ton but he was someone with a bit of backbone compared to other Republicans.
Damn, yeah he looks 60 at most. I guess magical underpants or whatever will do that for you.
I mean, except for the grey hair, Romney looks similar enough to Biden. I don’t know if Mormons forbid hair dye in the same way they forbid hot drinks, but the hair color is the only difference I see.
In any case, I’m not yet 40 and my cohort are dealing with grey hair. Romney’s would be unusual but not impossible. I also have very few greys, but it gets comments since I’m not the type of person who would dye his hair.
Lol, Mormons forbid caffeine not hot drinks.
They’re still allowed hot cocoa.
They actually just aren’t allowed caffeine. It’s a “mind-altering” substance according to them. So they can drink hot cocoa, but only if the chocolate has been de-caffeinated.
Source: my old roommate was a “Jack” Mormon.
People have no idea what Mormons believe, the other day I saw someone saying they couldn’t eat chocolate and the comment had hundreds of upvotes
Arguably one of the least disliked of Republicans, John McCain not withstanding, for me personally.
At least tried to maintain some sort of civility. Too bad that doesn’t mean much when he goes along with the rest of colleagues and their craziness.
Not sad he’s gone, but not particularly happy either. Might open up Utah for the Dems in the future.
It’s not opening anything up to the dems. As a Utahn myself, I’m 99% certain Romney is retiring because he can’t win reelection here, as the majority of the state thinks he’s a RINO. I mean, he replaced Orrin Hatch, who could have won another term if he wanted, despite being in the senate since before microwave popcorn was a thing.
Utah had 1 dem representative and he only won because people came out to vote for medical marijuana. The state house then butchered that law until it was almost unrecognizable disenfranchising everyone who was finally getting involved. The state is run by car dealerships and residential developers. The money won’t let a non-republican take that seat.
It’s amazing how far the R has fallen.
Small government? Privacy? Staying out of people’s life? Individual rights and responsibility? Freedom?
Yeah.
Im not registered with a party. I’m not sure about how that would benefit anything, but I’m not sure I’ll be able to vote R until that’s fixed.
Same.
Although it’s becoming close I register for Democrats cause of how bad things have gotten with Republicans.
They only got culture wars and conspiracy theories and downright malice now.
Helps me? NO. Tax cuts for the rich, taxes for me, and forcing their religion down my throat.
Helps others? NO. Targeting social security, restricted voting, and a whole lot of pulling up bootstraps
Helps kids? NO. Child labor laws weakened, free school lunched targeted, and don’t say gay.
Helps nature? NO. Climate change “isn’t real!!!”, drill baby drill no matter what, and hostility to any “alternative/clean” solutions.
What future is there in that? Just a regressive and bastardization of the past. For what?!?! Just to try to bring back the “Good old days?”
With Dems there is at least a future, as troubled and imperfect as it might be. With Reps there isn’t
If those are your concerns I’m curious how you were ever comfortable voting for a republican? These have always been their stances, they’ve just doubled down on them lately.
Romney’s almost worse. At least with the current crop of republicans there’s no doubting they’re batshit and evil because they don’t even bother hiding it.
Mittens gives a veneer of civility to a party that has lost its way and isn’t fit for purpose.
Yeah I liked that but on entitlements; surely he meant billionaire and corporate welfare.
Hes only talking about cutting “entitlements” because the real way you pay for them is taxing billionaires like him drastically more, and he doesnt like that.
There are 54 senators over 65. Only 16.8% of Americans are over 65. So how the fuck is this proper representation?
That is democracy. You vote them in. Of course leadership positions will always be above the mean age. Same as senior positions in companies will also be older than the new hires. It takes years to become proficient in your trade and new people to politics usually start at the local level first before entering upper offices.
To be fair, infants aren’t allowed to (and probably shouldn’t be allowed to) run for senate, even if they don’t cry about things as much as some of the representatives do. The number probably shouldn’t be perfectly 1-to-1. It’s still way too high though.
Right, and there should be an upper age limit too for the same reasons. For example, I don’t see much difference between a toddler and where Feinstein is at now. I don’t mean to be callus, but we competency in government.
