Romney, favored in Utah Senate bid, could take on outsized role in party

WASHINGTON — Mitt Romney’s extensive resume has many Republicans looking to him to take on a role in the Senate as a political and moral counterweight to a president many in the GOP see as divisive and undignified. First he has to get elected. The 2012 GOP nominee for president announced Friday he is running for the Utah Senate seat being vacated by GOP Sen. Orrin Hatch.

Romney, 70, is among the bestknown names in U.S. politics. He has been a successful businessman, governor of heavily Democratic Massachusetts, Olympics rescuer and, more recently, one of his party’s fiercest critics of President Donald Trump.

Arizona Sen. John McCain, who often has taken on Trump, was quick to welcome Romney, his rival in the 2008 White House race.

In a tweet Friday shortly after Romney announced his Senate bid, McCain said Romney “has shown the country what it means to lead with honor, integrity and civility. The people of #Utah and the nation need his strong voice, resolve and service now more than ever.”

Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., said Romney would bring the prestige of his previous roles to the Senate.

“I think he will be a plus-plus in the Senate,” Shelby said, calling Romney “a thoughtful man” and a leader who at 70 is senior enough to be an elder statesman.

Shelby, 83, has had his differences with Trump. He publicly opposed a GOP nominee backed by Trump in Alabama’s closely watched Senate race last year, declaring before the election that “the state of Alabama deserves better” than Roy Moore, a former judge accused of sexual contact with teenage girls decades ago.

Romney has the stature to make similar declarations when — or if — they are needed, Shelby said. “I know the governor and I think he would support good ideas,” Shelby said.

Romney, a heavy favorite to win the Senate seat, will step in “immediately” as a leader in the Senate, said Idaho Sen. Jim Risch, who got to know Romney when both served as governors and when he co-chaired Romney’s presidential campaigns in Idaho.

“He has broad experience, he has the prestige. He’ll jump right in,” Risch said.

Those expectations are based largely on Romney’s record, rather than recent accomplishments. Romney has not served in elected office in more than a decade and lost bids for president in 2008 and 2012.

Trump has seized on Romney’s failed presidential bids, saying in 2016 that Romney “choked like a dog.”

It’s not clear how Romney will relate to the president as a candidate or as a senator, should he win. While he denounced Trump during the 2016 presidential campaign, Romney softened his stance after the election and put himself forward as a candidate for secretary of state before Trump looked elsewhere.

Since then, Romney has spoken up from afar. He called out Trump after a deadly white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, last year, and lashed out again last month when