“Honestly, it’s time for a new generation of political leaders to emerge,” says the Republican US senator. Mitt Romney was the only member of his party to vote for conviction in Trump’s first impeachment trial.
Republican U.S. Senator and former presidential candidate Mitt Romney will not run for re-election next year, likely marking his retirement from politics. “At the end of another term, I would be around 80 years old,” the 76-year-old internal party critic of former President Donald Trump said in a video published Wednesday. “Honestly, it’s time for a new generation of political leaders.”
The Mormon, who was defeated by incumbent Barack Obama in the 2012 presidential election, said he has served the public for 25 years and enjoys his work in the Senate. However, he will not run for a second term in the November 2024 presidential and legislative elections.
Romney is one of the best-known conservative Republican senators. The former investment entrepreneur was governor of Massachusetts from 2003 to 2007. In 2012, he failed in his bid to replace President Obama in the White House. In late 2018, he was elected to a six-year term in the Senate, representing the state of Utah. The term ends at the beginning of 2025.
Romney was the only one to vote to convict Trump
As a senator, Romney distinguished himself as one of then-President Trump’s harshest internal party critics. In the first impeachment trial against Trump in the so-called Ukraine case, in February 2020, Romney was the only Republican senator to vote to convict the president, earning him hostility from his own ranks.
In the second impeachment trial against Trump over the invasion of the Capitol on January 6, 2021, he voted again as “guilty” – this time along with six friends from the party. In both cases, the two-thirds majority required in the Senate to convict Trump was lost.
Romney used Wednesday’s announcement that he would not run for a second term in the Senate to criticize Trump and President Joe Biden of the Democratic Party. Trump denies climate change, while Biden only offers “feel-good solutions” that will change nothing regarding global warming.
In an interview with the Washington Post, Romney also complained about the development of the Republicans. The party is apparently attracted to a “demagogic populist message”. Trump is the big favorite in the race for the Republican nomination for the 2024 presidential elections. (APA/AFP)