MITT’S BAD POLITICAL KARMA
Conservatives in Utah rally around opponent
Somewhere Jane Swift must be smiling.
Sixteen years after Mitt Romney elbowed Swift out of the Massachusetts governor’s race, Romney’s attempt to do the same thing to another candidate in Utah fell flat, with a resounding thud.
Not only did Romney fail to secure the GOP nomination for the U.S. Senate, he actually lost at the state convention. To a lowly state rep. Named Kennedy. Ouch.
The former Massachusetts governor now has to win in the GOP primary June 26, and he remains the favorite to do that.
But his failure to avoid a primary had to be humiliating, and says a lot about the current state of politics in the GOP.
Romney is a former Never Trumper who delivered a blistering attack on Trump in the 2016 campaign, calling him a “phony” and urging Republican voters to reject then-candidate Trump.
In his Utah Senate campaign, Romney embraced Trump on some issues and the president even endorsed Mitt. But Romney could not bring himself to say he’d endorse the president for the 2020 campaign.
That apparently was enough for conservatives in Utah to send Romney a message by rallying around his GOP opponent, Mike Kennedy, who most thought didn’t stand a chance against the former Massachusetts governor and 2012 presidential nominee.
And the message to Republicans across the country is clear: Diss the president at your own risk.
Trump supporters are fiercely loyal to their president, and will not forgive candidates who don’t show the same loyalty. And especially establishment Republicans like Romney won’t cut it in some states.
Republicans face a war within their own party, and that’s not going to help them beat back the Democrats this fall.
Utah is a microcosm of the problems within the GOP. Mitt probably never thought he’d be in a primary battle for the Utah Senate seat. It’s one of his home states where he helped save the Salt Lake City Winter Olympics.
But time may have passed Romney by. He hasn’t won an election since 2002 — in Massachusetts.
Just think: Romney lost to a Kennedy in 1994 and could lose to another Kennedy in 2018. That’s coming full circle.