On Tuesday, Romney reaffirmed his longtime distaste for former President Donald Trump without saying he would support the Democratic ticket this year. Neither he nor former House Speaker Paul Ryan, his running mate in the 2012 presidential election, will support the top of the Republican ticket this election.
“I’ve made it very clear that I don’t want Donald Trump to be the next president of the United States,” Romney said at the Hinckley Institute of Politics at the University of Utah.
Romney said the Republican Party would likely need “to be rebuilt or reoriented” no matter what happens in the election, noting that he would like to “have a voice” in the party following the election.
“I believe I will have more influence in the party by virtue of saying it as I’ve said it,” he said. “I’m not planning on changing the way I’ve described it.”
In the 2016 election, Romney wrote in the name of his wife, Ann, for president, and in 2020, he said he did not vote for Trump but would not say if he voted for Joe Biden instead.
“All of those now pro-Kamala voices will not be allowed back in,” Doug Heye, a Republican strategist, told the New York Times. “But there will be a GOP post-Trump, and there should be some sane people remaining to fix that.”
Romney has expressed his distaste for Trump over the years, telling MSNBC, “When someone has been determined by a jury to have committed sexual assault, that is not someone who I want my kids and grandkids to see as president of the United States.” On Trump’s running mate, Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH), he said, “I don’t know that I can disrespect someone more.”
Still, Romney will not join the long list of Republicans who have backed Harris’s candidacy. More than 200 Republicans who worked for Romney, 2008 presidential nominee John McCain, and former President George W. Bush endorsed Harris in an August letter.
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Harris has also received endorsements from high-profile Republican figures such as former Vice President Dick Cheney, former Rep. Liz Cheney, and former Sen. Jeff Flake. Sarah Palin is the only living former Republican presidential or vice presidential candidate who has endorsed Trump this year.
Bush said he would not endorse a candidate in this election.
