Romney says Trump likely Republican nominee if he runs in 2024

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Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, said in an interview Tuesday that if former President Trump were to run again in 2024 he would likely win the Republican nomination.

"He has by far the largest voice and a big impact in my party," Romney told the New York Times' DealBook. "I don’t know if he’s planning to run in 2024 or not, but if he does, I’m pretty sure he would win the nomination."

Romney noted that he’s not always good at making predictions and "a lot can happen between now and 2024," but he said in recent polls comparing Trump to other potential Republican candidates, "he wins in a landslide." 

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He said if Trump runs again he would support a candidate who "more represented the tiny wing of the party that I represent." 

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He added that he hasn't voted for Trump in the past and wouldn't plan on doing so in the future. 

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Shortly after the November election, Romney told Meet the Press, "I believe the great majority of people who voted for Donald Trump want to make sure that his principles and his policies are pursued. So yeah, he’s not disappearing by any means. He’s the 900 pound gorilla when it comes to the Republican party."

The Utah senator is one of Trump’s more vocal critics in the party and was the only GOP senator to vote to convict Trump in both of his impeachments.

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Trump will make his first major speech since leaving office at the conservative CPAC conference this weekend and has yet to say whether he plans to run in 2024.

During his speech, Trump plans to claim his place as the "presumptive 2024 nominee," and advisers are expected to meet with him at Mar-a-Lago this week to help him decide his next political move, Axios reported, citing sources.

"There’s no question he’ll play a pivotal role in politics for a long time to come," Eric Trump told Fox & Friends this week. He added there are "75, 80 million people who would follow" his father "to the end of the Earth" and love him because they "love what he stands for." 

Trump will likely also support primary challengers to Republicans in the midterms who voted for his impeachment, he said. 

Some critics of Trump's impeachment have said Democrats mainly wanted to convict Trump and bar him from running for office again because they didn't want to run against someone who received more than 74 million votes. President Biden received more than 81 million votes, making Biden and Trump the two highest vote getters in U.S. presidential election history. 

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Eric Trump said he thinks his father is the "modern Republican party" that resurrected an old one that was incapable of winning. "I think my father showed the Republican Party how to win again," he said.