Romney Urges Republican ‘Megadonors and Influencers’ to Push Their Candidates Out of 2024 Race to Stop Trump

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Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT) published an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal on Monday pleading with the powerbrokers of his own party not to repeat what he sees as the mistakes of the 2016 GOP primary, which led to Donald Trump’s shock win of the nomination.

Romney began by noting that “a baker’s dozen Republicans” are challenging Trump to be the GOP standard bearer in 2024 and it “is possible for any of them if the field narrows to a two-person race before Mr. Trump has the nomination sewn up.”

The 2012 Republican GOP nominee for president then argued, “Republican megadonors and influencers—large and small—are going to have to do something they didn’t do in 2016: get candidates they support to agree to withdraw if and when their paths to the nomination are effectively closed.”

Romney even went so far as to offer a specific date for all but one non-Trump candidates to drop out of the race. “That decision day should be no later than, say, Feb. 26, the Monday following the contests in Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina.”

The Utah Republican then noted that this may not be an easy task as “there are incentives for no-hope candidates to overstay their prospects.” Romney explained:

Coming in behind first place may grease another run in four years or have market value of its own: Mike Huckabee and Rick Santorum got paying gigs. And as former New Hampshire Gov. John H. Sununu has observed, “It is fun running for president if you know you cannot win.”

Romney then took a short walk down memory lane to a time when “candidates themselves used to consolidate the field.”

Noting that those days are far behind us, he argued that PACs and billionaire donors are now the ones pulling many of the strings in modern campaigns and that they “have a responsibility to give their funds with clear eyes about their candidate’s prospects.”

Romney concluded by taking and indirect shot at Trump, writing, “Our party and our country need a nominee with character, driven by something greater than revenge and ego, preferably from the next generation. Family, friends and campaign donors are the only people who can get a lost-cause candidate to exit the race. After Feb. 26, they should start doing just that.”

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