The results of a recent special election in the red state of Utah could likely spell out the political future of Senator Mitt Romney.
Why? Well, it looks like a major pro-Trump candidate Celeste Maloy has just won the three-way race, defeating former state Rep. Becky Edwards and businessman Bruce Hough.
Edwards came in second place with 38 percent of the vote while Hough finished in third with 26 percent.
The seat was being vacated by Rep. Chris Stewart (R), who is retiring later this month to care for his ailing wife.
All three candidates campaigned on a message of traditional conservatism — smaller government, pro-business, and so forth — but Edwards was an outspoken critic of Trump while Maloy and Hough defended him from multiple indictments which they saw as politically motivated.
What sealed the deal for Edwards was her admission to having voted for Biden in 2020, something she regretted during her campaign trail.
This result should make Romney take notice – he has taken a hostile stance against Trump since he passed him over for secretary of state ahead of assuming office in January 2017, voting to impeach him twice and siding with Democrats on other issues.
In July, it was reported that he was devising a plan to prevent Trump from winning the 2024 GOP presidential nomination; this included writing an op-ed titled “Donors Don’t Fund A Trump Plurality”.
In it, he proposed Republican megadonors and influencers pull funding from any 2024 Republican presidential hopefuls before February 26th so their efforts could be concentrated on backing one single candidate instead that could run against Trump effectively.
It remains unclear whether or not this election portends bad news for Romney’s political future or if it will merely serve as a wake up call that Republicans want someone more aligned with their beliefs than himself at the helm now more than ever before.
