Michigan native Mitt Romney won't run for second US Senate term

U.S. Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, who was born and raised in southeastern Michigan, became governor of Massachusetts and ran an unsuccessful race for president before winning a Senate seat, said Wednesday he won't run for a second six-year term.

"It is a profound honor to serve Utah and the nation, and I thank you for giving me the opportunity to do so," Romney said in a video message sent out by his office.

At a time when much is being made of the age of Democratic President Joe Biden, who is 80, and Republican former President Donald Trump, who is 77, and their being the favorites to win their parties' nominations next year, Romney, who is 76, said age was a reason he was planning to leave at the end of his current term in 2025.

"I have spent my last 25 years in public service of one kind or another," he said. "At the end of another term, I’d be in my mid-eighties. Frankly, it’s time for a new generation of leaders. They’re the ones that need to make the decisions that will shape the world they will be living in."

Then, showing a streak of independence that has defined his term in the Senate, he had hard words for both Biden and Trump, each of whom he has criticized in the past for not adequately addressing the challenges facing the nation. "Political motivations too often impede the solutions that these challenges demand," he said. "The next generation of leaders must take America to the next stage of global leadership."

In 2020, he became the first U.S. senator to ever vote to remove a president of his own party from office, saying Trump deserved conviction for pressuring Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate Biden, then the former vice president and a political rival. That vote failed.

Then, he was among seven Republican senators who voted to convict Trump for inciting a riot at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, when his supporters tried to stop Congress from certifying the 2020 election for Biden − a vote that also failed to reach the two-thirds threshold for conviction, though by then Trump had already left office.

As a senator, Romney often struck a more moderate bipartisan tone, working with the Biden administration to craft a deal to pass a sweeping infrastructure bill.

But he has also chastised Biden for overspending and for not working with Republicans to protect the future of Social Security and Medicare.

Romney, the son of three-term Michigan Gov. George Romney, was born in Detroit and raised in Oakland County, attending Cranbrook. He would later move to Massachusetts where he helped start Bain Capital, an investment firm.

He helped save the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City as CEO after corruption threatened it. And after serving a term as governor of Massachusetts from 2003-2007, he ran for president in 2008, winning that year's GOP primary in Michigan but losing the nomination to the late U.S. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., who lost to President Barack Obama.

Romney then won the nomination in 2012 but lost to Obama.

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Despite the fact that his niece, Ronna McDaniel, was chairwoman of the Michigan Republican Party at the time, Romney spoke out against nominating Trump in 2016, calling him "a phony, a fraud" ahead of a GOP debate in Detroit before the state's Republican primary. McDaniel became national party chairwoman and still holds that position. Trump would later endorse Mitt Romney to replace U.S. Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, in 2018.

Romney forcefully broke with Trump, however, once in office. After his first impeachment vote, McDaniel criticized him and Trump called him a "Democratic secret asset." Romney didn't back down, however. After the former president tried to overturn the results of the 2020 election and gave a speech ahead of a mob attacking the Capitol, Romney blasted the president. "What happened here today was an insurrection, incited by the president of the United States," he said.

During his term in the Senate, Romney has also shown a willingness to challenge party orthodoxy: He proposed expanding the Child Tax Credit for low-income families; just this week he proposed a phased-in increase of the federal minimum wage from $7.25 an hour to $11. And when Romney early this year entered the House chamber for the annual State of the Union address to find Rep. George Santos, R-NY., shaking hands with people despite allegations he embellished his resume, he told him flat out, "You shouldn't be here."

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Speaking to the Washington Post, Romney said his decision is based in large part on the state of politics. "We’re probably going to have either Trump or Biden as our next president," he said. "Biden is unable to lead on important matters and Trump is unwilling to lead on important matters.”

Contact Todd Spangler: tspangler@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter@tsspangler.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Mitt Romney, Michigan native, won't seek reelection for US Senate