Mitt Romney, the Republican nominee for president in 2012, is now a senator from Utah and has been a vocal critic of Donald Trump for Trump’s entire time in politics.
Romney voted to convict in both of Trump’s impeachment trials and was the only Republican senator to do so in the first trial.
For that reason, Romney has credibility as a Trump critic. But what isn’t likely is that the party will listen to him, especially about matters of political strategy.
Romney Speaks Out to Candidates and Donors
Romney on Tuesday authored an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, in which he pointed out that too many people are running for president as Republicans, and that no single candidate will likely gain traction against Trump. The article is pitched not at the candidates themselves, or even the voters, but rather at the donors of campaigns – who do, after all, read the Wall Street Journal.
“A baker’s dozen Republicans are hoping to become the party’s 2024 nominee for president,” Romney writes. “That is possible for any of them if the field narrows to a two-person race before Mr. Trump has the nomination sewn up. For that to happen, Republican megadonors and influencers—large and small—are going to have to do something they didn’t do in 2016: get candidates they support to agree to withdraw if and when their paths to the nomination are effectively closed.”
Romney does not name a specific candidate who he supports, nor does he say who should drop out and who should not.
But the senator argues that candidates with no hope of winning should drop out “no later than, say, Feb. 26,” which is after voting has taken place in Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada, and South Carolina.
“Left to their own inclinations, expect several of the contenders to stay in the race for a long time. They will split the non-Trump vote, giving him the prize. A plurality is all that is needed for winner-take-all primaries.”
In the Democratic contest in 2020, after it became clear that President Biden would probably win the nomination, Pete Buttigieg and Amy Klobuchar both ended their campaigns, setting up Biden and Bernie Sanders as the only remaining major candidates. Biden clinched the nomination not long after. Romney’s proposal would have been a better fit for the 2016 primaries, when just about every other Republican candidate was openly opposed to Trump, than the dynamics of the 2024 race.
It would only work if all of the non-Trump candidates in the race were running explicitly anti-Trump campaigns. But most of them are not, and of the dozen or so Republican candidates, only Chris Christie and Asa Hutchinson — both polling in single digits — have made anti-Trumpism the core of their campaigns. Some other candidates, like Nikki Haley and Vivek Ramaswamy, appear to be running with an eye towards a spot in a future Trump Administration or post-Trump MAGA celebrity, and would not seem to want to abandon their hopes just to hurt Trump.
Who would be the last remaining anti-Trump candidate? Would all of those candidates line up behind Ron DeSantis, whose candidacy has been floundering ever since he first announced? Tim Scott? Mike Pence? All seem unlikely to succeed.
“Our party and our country need a nominee with character, driven by something greater than revenge and ego, preferably from the next generation. Family, friends and campaign donors are the only people who can get a lost-cause candidate to exit the race. After Feb. 26, they should start doing just that,” Romney writes.
Whether Romney’s word will carry anything, in this matter, is a good question.
“Mitt Romney writing an open-letter to the donor class in the WSJ pushing them to stop Trump is about as clear an indicator of how we got Trump as you could ask for,” political writer David Freedlander said on Twitter.
Author Expertise and Experience
Stephen Silver is a Senior Editor for 19FortyFive. He is an award-winning journalist, essayist and film critic, who is also a contributor to the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Broad Street Review and Splice Today. The co-founder of the Philadelphia Film Critics Circle, Stephen lives in suburban Philadelphia with his wife and two sons. Follow him on Twitter at @StephenSilver.
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