Mitt Romney will deliver two high-profile speeches in Utah this week that could offer a window into his policy priorities as the 2012 Republican presidential nominee eyes a run for the Senate.
Romney is giving the keynote address Tuesday at the Salt Lake City Chamber of Commerce summit. On Friday, he will participate in a “fireside chat” at the Silicon Slopes conference, which draws tech industry executives from across the country to Utah during the same week as the Sundance Film Festival.
Though Romney is expected to soon make his run official — and the date is a moving target — several confidantes told CNN that they do not expect to hear any campaign rhetoric from him during either speech this week, much less any kind of political announcement.
Romney, who worked at the Boston-based Bain & Company before forming Bain Capital, will focus, in part, on how Utah can sustain its strong economic growth and continue to nurture its burgeoning tech sector, according to several sources.
Romney’s interest in the seat that is being vacated by retiring Sen. Orrin Hatch has essentially cleared the field for the former Massachusetts governor, who has long kept a vacation home in Utah and made the state his primary residence in 2014. He is best known in Utah for salvaging the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympic Games after they were mired in a bribery scandal that became a deep embarrassment to the state.
Though Romney has quietly been telling friends for weeks that he plans to run, the official line from his advisers is that he is still exploring the opportunity, talking to friends and family, as well as fellow Utahns about what they would like to see from their next senator.
Attention has centered on his fraught relationship with President Donald Trump. He sharply criticized Trump’s rhetoric during the 2016 campaign, as well as his missteps once he moved into the White House. Trump had actively encouraged Hatch to seek an eighth term, but he and Romney are on cordial terms. It is unclear whether Trump encouraged Romney to run in their most recent telephone conversation earlier this month. Romney advisers have refused to comment on what was said during the call.
As the country was celebrating the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday Monday, Romney rebuked the President for questioning why the US should allow immigrants from “shithole” countries to enter the US.
“The poverty of an aspiring immigrant’s nation of origin is as irrelevant as their race. The sentiment attributed to POTUS is inconsistent w/ America’s history and antithetical to American values. May our memory of Dr. King buoy our hope for unity, greatness, & ‘charity for all,'” Romney tweeted early Monday.
Because of his immense popularity in Utah, Romney is expected to have a fairly easy path to the Senate. No Republicans of stature in Utah have stepped forward to say they plan to run for Hatch’s seat. Early last year, Hatch made it clear that he would like to see Romney replace him.
Romney’s biggest hurdle would be winning over the most ardent conservative activists at the Utah GOP convention later this year when they decide who to nominate for the Senate. But even if he were to fail to win the 40% needed to advance to the ballot through that process, he could easily secure a spot on the primary ballot by collecting signatures and submitting them to the state.
In the November general election, he is most likely to face Democrat Jenny Wilson, a member of the Salt Lake County Commission whose father was a well-known mayor of Salt Lake City. Given Utah’s long Republican tradition, she would face very long odds in a quest to defeat Romney.