Posted on 04/14/2023 5:22:52 AM PDT by cotton1706
FARMINGTON, Utah -- A potential challenger to Republican first-term Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah took a major step Thursday toward jumping into next year's race, expected to be one of the GOP’s hardest-fought primary contests in 2024.
With memories of Romney's two votes to impeach former President Donald Trump stillfresh, Utah House Speaker Brad Wilson announced he was forming an exploratory committee 14 months before the scheduled primary.
Utah needs a “conservative fighter” who represents its values, not a “professional career politician," Wilson told The Associated Press in an interview at his real estate office in northern Utah.
“I don’t have any illusions that, as speaker of the house, I’m a household name. But that’s really not what this is about. What this is about is me going out and understanding what people care about,” he said.
The move is just shy of making his campaign official and allows Wilson to raise money and campaign statewide.
Romney has not yet announced plans to seek reelection, but earlier this week filed preliminary paperwork with the Federal Election Commission. He declined to comment on his statement of candidacy or Wilson's announcement on Thursday.
Wilson's exploratory committee potentially sets up the latest test of Republican Party attitudes toward members willing to criticize Trump after others, such as former Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney, were punished in GOP primaries or opted not to seek reelection.
(Excerpt) Read more at abcnews.go.com ...
That is a campaign to donate to... any links?
“Utah needs a “conservative fighter” who represents its values, not a “professional career politician”. Unfortunately, most all the GOP politicians say this campaign line and then get to DC and somehow don’t exactly live up to that statement. We will have to see. Will anyone be better than Romney? Yes. Will they live up to their promises? We’ll see. There’s very few people that can be like “Mr. Smith Goes To Washington” type.
Is Evan McMullin not putting his pumpkin head forward?
Mormon v Mormon. How about neither?
Please the Mormons will keep voting for Romney because he’s one of their own.... he’s got a gig for life no matter what he does.
everyone in utah is one of their own ...
In what clown world is Brad Wilson a “conservative fighter”, or a conservative at all? Hint: he wouldn’t BE Speaker of the Utah House if he really was a conservative; the GOP caucus of squishes wouldn’t support that any more than the U.S. House GOP squishes would support someone like Andy Biggs over Kevin McCarthy.
Wilson’s probably not as bad as Slick Willard though, and at a minimum would do less damage in the Senate than Romney does.
Plus it is an open question as to whether an actual conservative can even get elected statewide in Utah anymore, as the Salt Lake City area is well on its way to becoming the “New Austin” (Texas). Mike Lee, an alleged conservative, is portrayed by Utah lefties as being well to the right of Jesse Helms (not even close), and in 2022 Lee barely cleared 50% against a joke candidate who only got votes on the basis of not being Mike Lee, as opposed to anything positive.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.