Mitt Romney is expected to easily win the Republican primary and general election for an open Senate seat in Utah despite his failure to wrap up the nomination at state’s GOP convention over the weekend, experts told The New York Times.
The open seat is the one held by Orrin Hatch, who announced he is retiring.
Romney was forced into a June 26 primary after the Utah Republican convention on Saturday voted only 49 percent for him, while 51 percent chose little-known state legislator Mike Kennedy.
Romney earns a spot to compete in the June primary, in any case, due to a controversial 2014 state law allowing candidates to win a position on the primary ballot by gathering signatures from voters.
Despite the embarrassing rejection of Romney given his stature in the state, longtime observers of Utah politics point out that there is a long history of the GOP conventions favoring more hard-line candidates, who then go on to lose in the Republican primary.
For example, two years ago Gov. Gary Herbert failed to win a majority of convention delegates but went on to capture the renomination in the primary by a 44-point margin, according to The New York Times. And in a special House race in 2017, Rep. John Curtis finished fourth at the convention and still won the primary and general elections.
"There’s a high probability that [Romney] wins by a large margin," Brigham Young Prof. David Magleby told The Salt Lake Tribune.
"It may be of some utility to his campaign to have a primary contest and broaden his network of local contacts. I don’t think this will be a serious primary challenge for him at all."
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