Josh Romney, the son of Mitt Romney, is taking a pass on challenging Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) in 2016 but thinks somebody else should run against the incumbent tea party senator.
Romney, in an interview with Utah’s Deseret News, said Lee should face a primary challenger.
“I think it’s good for positions to be sharpened, and I’d like to see a debate and see some ideas thrown out there,” Romney told the newspaper, adding that he would not go out and ” try to recruit anyone to” challenge Lee.
The younger Romney’s decision not to run is in spite of encouragement by Zions Bank CEO Scott Anderson —who more recently joined Lee’s campaign.
“That almost made me want to run,” Romney said. Polling actually showed Romney posing a serious threat to Lee if he decided to jump into the race.
Romney said he’d talked with other potential candidates adding “a few different people who I think are back and forth a little bit” about running against Lee. Romney didn’t throw out names of possible candidates.
Lee, Romney said, made “a mistake” in helping Sen. Ted Cruz’s (R-TX) push to defund Obamacare that resulted in a government shutdown in 2013.
“I think that was very divisive,” Lee said. “I think it probably hurt the Republican Party politically.”
Lee has gotten significant criticism from major Utah political figures. Jon Huntsman Sr., the wealthy philanthropist who bankrolled Jon Huntsman Jr.’s ill-fated 2012 presidential campaign, called Lee “an embarrassment to Utah.”
But Huntsman Jr. split with his father and joined Lee’s re-election committee as a co-chairman.
Jon Huntsman Jr. and Mitt Romney both have deep ties in Utah and the Mormon community and were rivals in the 2012 GOP primary. Feuding between Huntsman and Romney goes back long before the 2012 primary. If someone from Romney world were to challenge Lee, the primary battle could unfold as the latest proxy battle between the Huntsmans and the Romneys.
(H/t: Charlie Mahtesian)
