US Senator Mitt Romney, a critic of Trump, did not run for re-election

“Frankly, it’s time for a new generation of political leaders,” says the Republican US senator. Mitt Romney was the only member of his party to vote to convict in Trump’s first impeachment trial.

Republican Senator and former presidential candidate Mitt Romney will not run for re-election next year, which could be a sign that he is retiring from politics. “At the end of another term in office, I will be in my mid-80s,” the party’s internal critic of former President Donald Trump, 76, said in a video released on Wednesday. “Quite frankly, it is time for a new generation of political leaders.”

The Mormon, who was defeated by incumbent President Barack Obama in the 2012 presidential election, said he has now served the public for 25 years and enjoyed his work in the Senate. However, he will not run for a second term in the November 2024 presidential and congressional elections.

Romney is one of the most famous conservative Republican senators. The former investment tycoon was governor of Massachusetts from 2003 to 2007. In 2012, he failed in his bid to replace President Obama in the White House. At the end of 2018, he was elected to a six-year term in the Senate, representing the state of Utah. The mandate ends at the beginning of 2025.

Romney was the only one who voted to convict Trump

As a senator, Romney emerged as one of then-President Trump’s harshest internal party critics. In the first impeachment trial of Trump in the so-called Ukraine case in February 2020, Romney was the only Republican senator to vote to convict the president, which earned him hostility from among his ranks.

In Trump’s second impeachment trial over the storming of the Capitol on January 6, 2021, Trump again voted “guilty” — this time along with six party friends. In both cases, the two-thirds majority required in the Senate to convict Trump was lost.

Romney took advantage of his announcement on Wednesday that he would not run for a second term in the Senate to criticize both Trump and President Joe Biden of the Democratic Party. Trump denies climate change, while Biden only offers “feel-good solutions” that won’t change anything about global warming.

In an interview with The Washington Post, Romney also complained about Republican sophistication. The party seems to be attracted to a “populist, demagogic message.” Trump is considered the most likely candidate in the race to win the Republican Party nomination for the 2024 presidential elections. (APA / Agence France-Presse)