WaPo: Romney Making Serious 2016 Moves, ‘Almost Certainly Will Run’

In this photo taken Dec. 1, 2014. for Republican presidential canadiate Mitt Romney smiles on the field before an NFL football game between the New York Jets and the Miami Dolphins in East Rutherford, N.J. Mitt Romne... In this photo taken Dec. 1, 2014. for Republican presidential canadiate Mitt Romney smiles on the field before an NFL football game between the New York Jets and the Miami Dolphins in East Rutherford, N.J. Mitt Romney is reaching out to former staff and supporters as he considers a third run for president. Romney and his wife, Ann, phoned former backers in the early voting states of New Hampshire and Iowa to gauge their support over the weekend. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez) MORE LESS
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Mitt Romney continues to move toward a third run for President in 2016.

Since telling a group of donors at a closed fundraiser last week that he would considering running for president for a third time, Romney has contacted a number of prominent Republican lawmakers, according to The Washington Post, including Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI).

Ryan, Romney’s pick for vice president during the 2012 campaign, said on Monday that he wouldn’t run for president in 2016. Ryan, according to the Post, was “encouraging” about Romney’s plans.

A “senior Republican” also told the Post that Romney “almost certainly will” run for president in 2016.

Romney has also recently reached out to Sens. Kelly Ayotte (R-NH), Rob Portman (R-OH), former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty (R), former Sen. Scott Brown (R-MA) who ran unsuccessfully for Senate in New Hampshire, and Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-UT), the Post reported. He’s also had lunch with conservative radio host Laura Ingraham.

Beyond reaching out to lawmakers Romney has also reportedly managed to get the backing of a pair of his former New Hampshire-based advisers: Jim Merrill and Thomas D. Roth.

Both former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush (R) and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) have signaled interest in running for president in 2016 and inhabit the same area of the GOP as Romney.

This post has been updated.

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Notable Replies

  1. Avatar for marby marby says:

    Wow - Romney, Tim Pawlenty and Scott Brown. There’s a team of winners!

  2. Avatar for xyxox xyxox says:

    With three moderately insane rightwingnuts vying for the moderately insane Republican vote, the totally insane rightwingnuts may actually have a chance at taking the nomination in 2016.

  3. Where is Mitt calling home these days?

  4. Wonder if that means he’ll actually be paying taxes for the next year or two.

  5. Isn’t this the same guy who at various points in 2012 found himself losing to Herman Cain, Michelle Bachmann, Rick Santurum, and Newt Gingrich?

    He only won after Republicans decided the others were just too crazy. They never wanted him as their nominee. He needed an almost perfectly incompetent field. Shouldn’t that be part of the calculus?

    How inside the bubble do you have to be to think that a Netflix documentary that was watched by three reporters from Politico, a couple thousand people in Utah, and a few former staffers changed anything?

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