Mitt Romney

Politician

• Born: March 12, 1947
• Birthplace: Detroit, Michigan

As governor of Massachusetts from 2003 to 2007, Mitt Romney proposed far-reaching reforms for the state’s government. He helped to establish near-universal health care coverage in the state. He had previously become known for his management of the 2002 Winter Olympics, and then gained national attention after becoming a candidate for the 2008 Republican Party presidential nomination. Although he lost that nomination to Arizona senator John McCain, Romney announced his candidacy for the 2012 GOP presidential nomination in April 2011. This time achieving the nomination, he suffered a defeat at the hands of incumbent president Barack Obama in the 2012 presidential election. Romney was elected a US senator for Utah in 2018, and established a reputation as one of the most prominent Republican critics of President Donald Trump.

Early Life

W. Mitt Romney was born on March 12, 1947, in Detroit, Michigan, the son of Lenore Romney, who ran for the Michigan Senate in 1970, and George Romney, former Michigan governor and one-time presidential candidate. The W in Romney's name stands for Willard, as in hotel chain magnate J. Willard Marriott Sr., who was a friend of Romney's parents. His middle name, Mitt, came from an uncle who was a Chicago Bears quarterback in the 1920s.

Romney's parents were born in Utah, and his great-grandparents walked across the American plains to get there, as part of the Mormon migration between 1846 and 1869. Seeking religious freedom, the Mormons established the headquarters of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Salt Lake City, and Romney was raised in this tradition.

When George Romney was governor, he helped draft the Michigan Constitution and revitalize the state's business climate. He reorganized state government and improved education, and also served as US secretary of housing and urban development (HUD) in the Richard Nixon administration. He believed deeply in the role of volunteerism and, as HUD secretary, helped form and subsequently led the National Center for Voluntary Action after leaving public life.

Education and Family

Before Mitt Romney entered Brigham Young University (BYU), where he received his bachelor of arts degree in 1971, he attended Stanford University from 1965–66 for his freshman year. The summer of 1966 he left for France where he worked as a Mormon missionary. His work involved trying to convert the mostly Catholic French people to Mormonism, and he later said that he found the experience difficult yet humbling and in sharp contrast to his privileged upbringing. Not only did he miss his family and friends, he did not speak French and worked with no compensation. Living abroad opened his eyes to the world, and he realized that not everyone has access to the comforts enjoyed by the affluent in the United States.

Romney enrolled in BYU in February 1969 in order to follow his high school sweetheart and fiancée Ann Davies. They married in March of that year, first in a civil ceremony at Ann's parents' home in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, and then in a Mormon ceremony the following day in Salt Lake City, Utah. After graduation, the pair moved to Boston so Romney could attend Harvard University's business and law schools. As a student, he reportedly held no political aspirations and was more focused on passing his law courses, juggling the workload with his business studies, and his first job search.

In 1975, Romney earned a master's degree in business administration from Harvard Business School and was named a Baker Scholar. The same year, he received his law degree from Harvard Law School.

Romney and his wife had five sons—all of whom graduated from or attended Brigham Young University—and many grandchildren. Ann Romney served on the Republican Town Committee in Belmont, Massachusetts and was elected as a Town Meeting member. In 1997, she was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. She published a memoir in 2015 titled In This Together: My Story, which chronicles her battle with the disease.

In 1999, the Romneys moved to Salt Lake City, Utah, when Romney became chief executive officer and president of the Salt Lake City Organizing Committee for the 2002 Winter Olympics. After the Olympics, the family returned to Belmont and Romney ran for governor of Massachusetts.

Business Career

From 1978 to 1984, Romney was a vice president of Bain & Company, Inc., a Boston-based management-consulting firm. In 1984, he started the private equity investment company Bain Capital, an offshoot of Bain & Company. The firm founded, acquired, or invested money in hundreds of companies, including Staples, Domino's Pizza, and Brookstone. In 1990, Romney returned to Bain & Company during a financial crisis and helped turn the company around. The firm had many offices worldwide and employed thousands of people.

His success in the business world gave Romney the freedom to follow his father's example of public service. In 1994, he was the Massachusetts Republican nominee for US Senate, running against a formidable opponent in Democrat Ted Kennedy. Even though he lost, Romney took 41 percent of the vote and gained valuable experience in Massachusetts politics.

In 1999, Romney was asked to return to Utah, where he had a second home, to become CEO and president of the Salt Lake City Olympic Organizing Committee and save the Winter 2002 Olympics from scandal and financial crisis. At the time, the Justice Department and FBI were investigating a bribery scandal, in which members of the Salt Lake Bid Committee had offered International Olympic Committee officials money and gifts in exchange for hosting the games.

The original budget for the Olympics proved to be too low, and the committee did not have the sponsorship money needed to balance the budget. However, during his three years in Salt Lake, Romney erased the $379 million operating deficit, organized twenty-three thousand volunteers, raised community spirit, and oversaw unprecedented public safety. Romney embarked on a public relations campaign to boost the image of the Games, appearing on radio talk shows, participating in bobsledding, and meeting with famous Olympians such as Kristi Yamaguchi, Dan Jansen, and Picabo Street.

Governor of Massachusetts

After one of the most successful Olympics in history, Romney decided that rather than return to his job with Bain & Company, he would rather pursue opportunities to perform public service. When the Massachusetts Republican Party drafted Romney as their pick for governor, he decided to enter the race.

Romney's 2002 campaign issues included proposals for holding the line on taxes and spending, improving education, mandating English immersion for all foreign-language students, and attracting jobs and economic development to Massachusetts.

He also campaigned on promises of lower taxes, funding the Clean Elections law (although not with taxpayer dollars), and supporting the death penalty. Romney opposed a repeal of the voter-approved tax rollback, gay marriage, and the cigarette tax. Regarding the topic of legal abortion, he was opposed to it personally but said he would preserve laws protecting a woman's right to choose.

In November 2002, Romney was elected governor of Massachusetts with his top priorities being education, economic growth, streamlining government, and improving the quality of life within the commonwealth.

When he took office in January 2003, he faced a much larger deficit than anticipated, and his subsequent plan to remedy the state's finances represented the most sweeping change to state government in a generation and involved proposals to restructure and streamline several areas of state government. Although Romney hoped to close the budget gap without raising taxes, there were devastating cuts to essential public services, including education, in some of the state's poorest cities. Critics maintain that under Romney's plan, cuts in health and human services, the judiciary, and higher education further damaged an already weak state economy.

In 2006, Romney signed the Massachusetts Health Reform Law, which was dubbed Romneycare, that required all Massachusetts residents to purchase health insurance or risk being penalized on their income taxes. The law was the first of its kind in the state and the nation. Many analysts suggest that it served as a model for President Obama's 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, popularly known as Obamacare.

2008 Presidential Bid

Romney opted not to seek reelection as governor in 2006. In February 2007, he officially announced his candidacy for the 2008 Republican Party nomination for president.

Romney opted to refuse public money for his presidential campaign, instead choosing to use funding from donations and the money he earned during his career in business. These decisions resulted in Romney having a campaign budget that far exceeded any of his rivals. Despite this, his campaign faced significant challenges.

Romney critics and rivals lambasted him for having employed illegal immigrants to do landscaping work at his home. In addition, his repeated claims that his father participated in civil rights-era marches with Martin Luther King, Jr. were discovered to be unfounded. However, Romney placed second in the 2008 Republican caucus in Iowa and finished with 25 percent of the vote.

Romney finished second in the 2008 New Hampshire Republican Party primary, earning 32 percent of the vote. As a Michigan native, he handily won the Michigan Republican primary, earning nearly 40 percent of the vote. He also won the Nevada Republican caucus by a wide margin, earning over 50 percent of the vote. Many analysts expected Romney's campaign to do well in Nevada, given that the state has a large Mormon population. Romney finished fourth in the South Carolina primary, earning nearly 16 percent of the total vote.

In the 2008 Florida primary, Romney placed second, earning 31 percent of the vote. However, Florida election rules allotted all of the state's fifty-seven delegates to the winner, John McCain.

In the 2008 "Super Tuesday" primaries and caucuses held on February 5, twenty-two states voted. Romney won Massachusetts, Utah, Minnesota, Alaska, Colorado, Montana, North Dakota, and Wyoming. However, McCain was a bigger winner, pulling significantly ahead in the GOP delegate count.

On February 7, 2008, Romney officially ended his bid for the Republican Party presidential nomination. Although his announcement surprised many of his supporters, Romney claimed he wanted to exit the race so that the GOP could unite in campaigning against the Democrats.

2012 Presidential Bid

Romney published a book entitled No Apology: The Case for American Greatness in March 2010. On April 11, 2011, he official announced that he would seek the 2012 Republican Party nomination for president.

Initial vote counting totals pointed to Romney winning the closest Iowa Republican caucus in history in January 2012, defeating Republican Party colleague and former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum by eight votes. However, following a recount, Santorum was named the contest’s official winner. On January 10, Romney won the 2012 New Hampshire Republican primary by a wide margin, earning over 39 percent of the vote. On January 21, Romney’s GOP colleague Newt Gingrich defeated him by a wide margin in the 2012 South Carolina Republican primary. However, Romney won the 2012 Florida Republican primary by over ten percent of the vote and the 2012 Nevada Republican primary by 29 percent of the vote.

On Super Tuesday, March 6, 2012, Romney won primary elections in six of eleven states. The results helped to further solidify his bid for the 2012 Republican Party presidential nomination. Romney won the GOP primary election in Hawaii on March 13, 2012. Later in March, he won primary elections in Puerto Rico and Illinois. In early April, Romney added to his delegate count by winning primary contests in Wisconsin, Maryland, and Washington, DC. On April 10, 2012, Santorum suspended his campaign; Gingrich dropped out of the race in early May, clearing Romney’s path to the 2012 GOP presidential nomination.

On August 11, 2012, Romney announced his selection of Representative Paul Ryan of Wisconsin as his vice presidential running mate in the 2012 presidential election. Later that month, he officially accepted the GOP's nomination. Despite an enthusiastic performance in the first debate and confidence in the Romney camp that their candidate would prove victorious, Romney ultimately lost the election to Democratic candidate Barack Obama. Following these results, commentators cited factors such as former president Bill Clinton's staunch endorsement of Obama, the ineffective response to the early negative advertisements against Romney, and the Obama campaign's more strategic and targeted approach to voters as reasons for Romney's loss even against the background of a still greatly struggling economy.

Retreating from the public eye immediately following the disappointing result of the election, Romney became a Marriott International board member and in 2013 accepted the position of executive partner at Solamere Capital, a private investment firm owned by eldest son, Tagg. He moved to Utah in 2014 and speculations began surfacing in late 2014 that he was becoming more open to the idea of a third run for the presidency in the 2016 election. Many conservatives insisted on a fresher face, however, and Romney announced in January 2015 that he would not be running.

In March 2016, Romney denounced Republican presidential front runner and businessman Donald Trump. When it became apparent that Trump would be the presumptive nominee for the Republican party, Romney announced his refusal to support Trump and suggested the party get behind a third-party candidate, which many Republicans believed would do nothing more than split the Republican vote and guarantee a Democratic presidential win instead. After Trump went on to win the Electoral College vote for the presidency, he reportedly considered Romney for secretary of state before choosing Rex Tillerson, chair and chief executive officer of ExxonMobil. However, Romney remained critical of the president, for example in 2017 speaking out against Trump's support for controversial Senate candidate Roy Moore of Alabama, who was accused of sexual misconduct with teenagers.

Utah Senator

In June 2018, Romney won the Republican nomination in Utah’s US Senate race. Romney ran against Utah state representative Mike Kennedy in the primary. He faced Democratic candidate Jenny Wilson in November 2018 for the seat being vacated by retiring Republican senator Orrin Hatch. Largely expected to win, he ultimately did prove victorious in the November midterm election, securing the seat in the Senate. He was sworn in on January 3, 2019. This made him just the third person in US history to serve as governor of a state and a US senator for another state.

In the Senate, Romney attracted particular attention as one of the highest-profile Republicans to consistently criticize Trump, who otherwise exerted much influence over the party. After Trump was impeached by the House of Representatives in December 2019, Romney was one of just two Republican senators (along with Susan Collins of Maine) who voted with Democrats in favor of allowing new witnesses in the subsequent Senate trial, a move that was blocked by the Republican majority. He then voted to convict Trump on the charge of abuse of power in February 2020, though he voted to acquit on the other impeachment charge of obstruction of Congress. Romney was the only Republican to align with Democrats on either charge; Trump was acquitted by the rest of the Republican senators.

Romney's opposition to Trump made him controversial within the Republican Party. Various organizations and other politicians, including Trump, expressed anger toward him. However, many moderates and liberals praised his willingness to stand against Trump's highly controversial actions. Romney's break from the extreme elements of his party continued through 2020, for example in his participation in a Black Lives Matter protest against racial inequality. He refused to endorse Trump in the 2020 presidential election. When Trump lost the election to Joe Biden but refused to concede, Romney was the first Senate Republican to officially congratulate Biden.

Romney sharply criticized Trump and other Republicans who continued to baselessly challenge the election results, an issue that came to head on January 6, 2021, when the Senate met to certify the results and a crowd of pro-Trump protesters disrupted the process by violently storming the US Capitol. Romney, who was evacuated along with other members of Congress, blamed the insurrection on Trump and his enablers. He then supported the second impeachment of Trump, on a charge of inciting insurrection. When Republican senators attempted to dismiss a Senate trial as unconstitutional due to the fact that Trump had already left office, Romney was one of five to join Democrats in overcoming this objection. Romney was one of seven Republicans who then voted to convict, joining all Democrats in the 57–43 majority, but that did not reach the necessary threshold and Trump was again acquitted.

In September 2023 Romney announced he would not seek reelection to the Senate in 2024. He framed his decision as a move to allow younger generations to step into political leadership, and suggested that both Trump and Biden—the frontrunners for the 2024 presidential race—should similarly give way to other candidates.

Bibliography

Carrejo, Cate. “What Has Mitt Romney Done Since 2012? He's Been Saving All His Political Energy for This One Moment.” Bustle, 16 May 2016. Accessed 6 Dec. 2018.

Coppins, McKay. "How Mitt Romney Decided Trump Is Guilty." The Atlantic, 5 Feb. 2020, www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2020/02/romney-impeach-trump/606127/. Accessed 27 Jan. 2021.

Halperin, Mark, and John Heilemann. Double Down: Game Change 2012. Penguin, 2013.

Helman, Scott, and Michael Kranish. “The Meaning of Mitt.” Vanity Fair, Feb. 2012, www.vanityfair.com/news/politics/2012/02/mitt-romney-201202. Accessed 16 May 2016.

Karni, Annie. "Romney to Retire, Calling for a 'New Generation' Beyond Biden and Trump." The New York Times, 13 Sept. 2023, www.nytimes.com/2023/09/13/us/politics/mitt-romney-retirement.html. Accessed 12 Oct. 2023.

Kranish, Michael, and Scott Helman. The Real Romney. Harper, 2012.

Lemann, Nicholas. “Transaction Man.” The New Yorker, 1 Oct. 2012, www.newyorker.com/magazine/2012/10/01/transaction-man. Accessed 6 Dec. 2018.

Mayer, Jane. “Christopher Steele, the Man behind the Trump Dossier.” The New Yorker, 12 Mar. 2018, www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/03/12/christopher-steele-the-man-behind-the-trump-dossier. Accessed 9 July 2018.

Pearson, Rick. "Sen. Mitt Romney Calls Out Fellow Republicans for Pushing Stolen Election Myth, Says It Makes Achieving Unity More Difficult." Chicago Tribune, 26 Jan. 2021, www.chicagotribune.com/politics/ct-mitt-romney-republicans-election-20210126-ohugfwzwgjcg5echre2xv7tr7y-story.html. Accessed 27 Jan. 2021.

Skocpol, Theda. “Mitt Romney, the Stealth Tea Party Candidate.” The Washington Post, 3 Feb. 2012, www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/mitt-romney-the-stealth-tea-party-candidate/2012/01/31/gIQAy0BZnQ‗story.html. Accessed 15 May 2016.

Wood, Benjamin. “Mitt Romney Wins the GOP Nomination in Utah’s U.S. Senate Race.” The Salt Lake Tribune, 27 June 2018, www.sltrib.com/news/politics/2018/06/27/mitt-romney-takes-huge/. Accessed 9 July 2018.