(C) Daily Kos
This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered.
 . . . . . . . . . .



Utah House speaker starts raising money for possible primary bid against Romney [1]

['Daily Kos Staff', 'Backgroundurl Avatar_Large', 'Nickname', 'Joined', 'Created_At', 'Story Count', 'N_Stories', 'Comment Count', 'N_Comments', 'Popular Tags']

Date: 2023-04-13  

The Deseret News reports Stewart, who has been an ally of GOP extremists, is thinking about it, and the only comment his spokesman offered was that he had “no comment on the race at this time.” Local and national observers also continue to talk up Attorney General Sean Reyes as a possible hardline foe for Romney. The most recent thing we heard from his camp was in November when an advisor said the attorney general was “certainly set up to run, but it does not mean he's considering it.”

The Tribune additionally relays that two more names are “said to be considering” a campaign: state Sen. Mike Kennedy, who lost to Romney in 2018, and former Trump national security adviser Robert O’Brien. Fox 13 also name-drops real estate executive Thomas Wright, who took 8% in the 2020 nomination contest for governor, and former state Rep. Becky Edwards, who lost host the 2022 Senate primary to incumbent Mike Lee 62-30.

Romney was actually Trump’s endorsed candidate when he first went up against then-state Rep. Kennedy, who is not related to the Kennedy who did beat Romney in a Senate race, the late Massachusetts Democrat Ted Kennedy. Mike Kennedy narrowly won the party convention, an event that’s long been dominated by activists who are far more ideologically extreme than their party's electorate at large, but Romney fended him off 71-29 in the primary two months later. Kennedy revived his career in late 2020 when party delegates picked him to fill a vacant state Senate seat, and he held it two years later without opposition.

Former Rep. Jason Chaffetz also expressed interest in February, though the Fox talking head has since then also talked about a possible nomination battle against Gov. Spencer Cox. But the campaign manager for Chaffetz’s successor, Rep. John Curtis, played down speculation the congressman could challenge Romney on Thursday, declaring, “He’d like to stay where he can get the most done for Utah. He doesn’t think it makes sense to start all over by running for U.S. Senate.”

[END]
---
[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/4/13/2163793/-Utah-House-speaker-starts-raising-money-for-possible-primary-bid-against-Romney

Published and (C) by Daily Kos
Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified.

via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds:
gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/