Mitt Romney

Willard Mitt Romney (born March 12, 1947) is an American businessman and retired politician who served as a United States senator from Utah from 2019 to 2025 and as the 70th governor of Massachusetts from 2003 to 2007. A member of the Republican Party, he was the party's nominee in the 2012 presidential election.

The youngest child of former Michigan governor and U.S. Housing and Urban Development Secretary George W. Romney, Romney served as a missionary in France for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church). After earning joint JD–MBA degrees from Harvard University in 1975, Romney moved to Boston and joined Bain & Company in 1977, later becoming its chief executive officer. In 1984 he co-founded Bain Capital, which grew into one of the nation's largest private equity firms.

Romney ran as the Republican nominee in the 1994 United States Senate election in Massachusetts, losing to Democratic incumbent Ted Kennedy. Subsequently, he resumed his position at Bain Capital and later moved to Utah, where a successful stint as president and CEO of the then-struggling 2002 Winter Olympics led to the relaunch of Romney's political career. He subsequently won the 2002 Massachusetts gubernatorial election. As governor, Romney helped develop and later signed a health care reform law (commonly referred to as "Romneycare") that provided near-universal health insurance access and presided over the prevention of a projected $1.2–1.5 billion deficit through a combination of spending cuts and the cessation of corporate tax loopholes.

Romney did not seek reelection as governor in 2006 and instead sought the 2008 Republican presidential nomination, which he lost to Senator John McCain. He won the nomination for the next presidential election, choosing Paul Ryan as his running mate. He lost the general election to incumbent President Barack Obama. After reestablishing residency in Utah, Romney successfully ran for the U.S. Senate in 2018, becoming the first person in modern U.S. history to be elected governor and U.S. senator of different states.

Willard Mitt Romney was born on March 12, 1947, at Harper University Hospital in Detroit, Michigan, one of four children of automobile executive George W. Romney and actress and homemaker Lenore Romney (née LaFount). His mother was from Logan, Utah, and his father was born to American parents in a Mormon colony in Chihuahua, Mexico. A fifth-generation member of the LDS Church, he is a great-grandson of Miles Park Romney and a great-great-grandson of Miles Romney, who converted to Mormonism in its first decade. Another great-great-grandfather, Parley P. Pratt, helped lead the early church.

Romney has three older siblings: Margo, Jane, and Scott. He was named after a family friend, businessman J. Willard Marriott, and his father's cousin, Milton "Mitt" Romney. Romney was called "Billy" until kindergarten, when he expressed a preference for "Mitt". In 1953, the family moved from Detroit to the affluent suburb of Bloomfield Hills and his father became the chairman and CEO of American Motors the following year and helped the company return to profitability. By 1959, his father had become a nationally known figure, and Mitt idolized him.

After receiving his JD–MBA from Harvard, Romney passed the Michigan bar exam but decided to pursue a career in business rather than law. He was recruited by several large companies but joined the Boston Consulting Group (BCG), reasoning that working as a management consultant for a variety of companies would better prepare him for a future position as a chief executive. Part of a 1970s wave of top graduates who chose to go into consulting rather than join a large company directly, he found his legal and business education useful in his job. He applied BCG principles such as the growth-share matrix, and executives viewed him as having a bright future there. At BCG, he was a colleague of Benjamin Netanyahu, with whom he formed a friendship that has lasted for more than 50 years.

In 1977, he was hired by Bain & Company, a management consulting firm in Boston formed a few years earlier by Bill Bain and several other ex-BCG employees. Bain later said of the 30-year-old Romney, "He had the appearance of confidence of a guy who was maybe ten years older." Unlike other consulting firms, which issued recommendations and then departed, Bain & Company immersed itself in a client's businesses and worked with them until changes were implemented. Romney became a vice president of the firm in 1978, working with such clients as the Monsanto Company, Outboard Marine Corporation, Burlington Industries, and Corning Incorporated. Within a few years, the firm considered him one of its best consultants. In fact, clients sometimes preferred to use him rather than more-senior partners.

Two family incidents during this time later surfaced during Romney's political campaigns. A state park ranger in 1981 told Romney his motorboat had an insufficiently visible license number and that he would face a $50 fine if he took the boat onto the lake. Disagreeing about the license and wanting to continue a family outing, Romney took it out anyway, saying he would pay the fine. The ranger arrested him for disorderly conduct. The charges were dropped several days later. In 1983, on a 12-hour family road trip, he placed the family's dog in a windshield-equipped carrier on the roof of their car, and then washed the car and carrier after the dog suffered a bout of diarrhea. The dog incident in particular later became fodder for Romney's critics and political opponents.

In 1984, Romney left Bain & Company to co-found and lead the spin-off private equity investment firm Bain Capital. He initially refrained from accepting Bill Bain's offer to head the new venture until Bain rearranged the terms in a complicated partnership structure so that there was no financial or professional risk to Romney. Bain and Romney raised the $37 million needed to start the new operation, which had seven employees. Romney held the titles of president and managing general partner. Though he was the sole shareholder of the firm, publications also called him managing director or CEO.

Initially, Bain Capital focused on venture capital investments. Romney set up a system in which any partner could veto one of these potential opportunities, and he personally saw so many weaknesses that few venture capital investments were approved in the initial two years. The firm's first significant success was a 1986 investment to help start Staples Inc., after founder Thomas G. Stemberg convinced Romney of the market size for office supplies and Romney convinced others; Bain Capital eventually reaped a nearly sevenfold return on its investment, and Romney sat on Staples's board of directors for over a decade.

In 2002, the administration of acting Massachusetts governor Jane Swift was weakened by political missteps and personal scandals, leading many Republicans to doubt her ability to win reelection. Party leaders and the White House encouraged Romney to run for governor, attracted by his high profile and perceived electability. After Swift announced on March 19, 2002, that she would not seek the Republican nomination, Romney entered the race and faced no primary opposition. Democrats challenged his eligibility, arguing that he had not met Massachusetts' seven-year residency requirement, but the bipartisan State Ballot Law Commission unanimously ruled that he had maintained sufficient ties to the state to qualify.

Romney again ran as a political outsider and moderate Republican, emphasizing his private sector experience and Olympics record as evidence of his ability to address Massachusetts' fiscal challenges. His campaign employed innovative microtargeting techniques and sought to soften his corporate image through staged "work days", in which Romney performed blue-collar jobs such as herding cows and baling hay, unloading a fishing boat, and hauling garbage. Although the Democratic nominee, Massachusetts State Treasurer Shannon O'Brien, led in the polls late in the race, Romney regained momentum with advertisements criticizing her record and economic stewardship, and associating her husband with the Enron scandal. He contributed more than $6 million of his own money to a campaign that raised nearly $10 million and won the November 5, 2002, election with 50 percent of the vote to O'Brien's 45 percent.

Romney was sworn in as the 70th governor of Massachusetts on January 2, 2003. He faced a Massachusetts state legislature with large Democratic majorities in both houses, and had picked his cabinet and advisors based more on managerial abilities than partisan affiliation. He declined a governor's salary of $135,000 during his term. Upon entering office in the middle of a fiscal year, he faced an immediate $650 million shortfall and a projected $3 billion deficit for the next year. Unexpected revenue of $1.0–1.3 billion from a previously enacted capital gains tax increase and $500 million in new federal grants decreased the deficit to $1.2–1.5 billion. Through a combination of spending cuts, increased fees, and removal of corporate tax loopholes, the state achieved surpluses of around $600–700 million during Romney's last two full fiscal years in office, although it began running deficits again after that.

Romney supported raising various fees, including those for drivers' licenses and gun licenses, to raise more than $300 million. He increased a special gasoline retailer fee by $0.02 per US gallon ($0.0053/L), generating about $60 million per year in additional revenue. Opponents said the reliance on fees sometimes imposed a hardship on those who could least afford them. Romney also closed tax loopholes that brought in another $181 million from businesses over the next two years and over $300 million for his term. He did so in the face of conservative and corporate critics who viewed these actions as tax increases.

The state legislature, with the governor's support, cut spending by $1.6 billion, including $700 million in reductions in state aid to cities and towns. The cuts also included a $140 million reduction in state funding for higher education, which led state-run colleges and universities to increase fees by 63% over four years. Romney sought additional cuts in his last year as governor by vetoing nearly 250 items in the state budget; the legislature overrode all the vetoes.

Romney formally announced his candidacy for the 2008 Republican nomination for president on February 13, 2007, in Dearborn, Michigan. Again casting himself as a political outsider, his speech frequently invoked his father and his family, and stressed experiences in the private, public, and voluntary sectors that had brought him to this point.

The campaign emphasized Romney's highly profitable career in the business world and his stewardship of the 2002 Olympics. He also had political experience as a governor, together with a political pedigree courtesy of his father (as well as many biographical parallels with him). Ann Romney, who had become an advocate for those with multiple sclerosis, was in remission and was an active participant in his campaign, helping to soften his political personality. Media stories called the 6-foot-2-inch (1.88 m) Romney handsome; a number of commentators noted that with his square jaw and ample hair graying at the temples, he matched a common image of what a president should look like.

Romney's liabilities included having run for senator and serving as governor in one of the nation's most liberal states and having taken positions in opposition to the party's conservative base during that time. Late during his term as governor, he had shifted positions and emphases to better align with traditional conservatives on social issues. Skeptics, including some Republicans, charged Romney with opportunism and a lack of core principles. As a Mormon, he faced suspicion and skepticism by some in the Evangelical wing of the party.

For his campaign, Romney assembled a veteran group of Republican staffers, consultants, and pollsters. But he was little-known nationally, and hovered around 10% support in Republican preference polls for the first half of 2007. He proved the most effective fundraiser of any of the Republican candidates and also partly financed his campaign with his own personal fortune. These resources, combined with the mid-year near-collapse of nominal front-runner John McCain's campaign, made Romney a threat to win the nomination and the focus of the other candidates' attacks. Romney's staff suffered from internal strife; Romney himself was at times indecisive, often asking for more data before making a decision.

During all his political campaigns, Romney has avoided speaking publicly about Mormon doctrines, referring to the U.S. Constitution's prohibition of religious tests for public office. But persistent questions about the role of religion in his life, as well as Southern Baptist minister and former governor of Arkansas Mike Huckabee's rise in the polls based on an explicitly Christian-themed campaign, led to Romney's December 6, 2007, "Faith in America" speech. In it, Romney declared, "I believe in my Mormon faith and endeavor to live by it. My faith is the faith of my fathers. I will be true to them and to my beliefs." He added that he should be neither elected nor rejected because of his religion, and echoed Senator John F. Kennedy's famous speech during his 1960 presidential campaign in saying, "I will put no doctrine of any church above the plain duties of the office and the sovereign authority of the law." Instead of discussing the specific tenets of his faith, he said he would be informed by it, saying: "Freedom requires religion just as religion requires freedom. Freedom and religion endure together, or perish alone." Academics later studied the role religion played in the campaign.

Romney supported the Bush administration's Troubled Asset Relief Program in response to the 2008 financial crisis, later saying that it prevented the U.S. financial system from collapsing. During the U.S. automotive industry crisis of 2008–2010, he opposed a bailout of the industry in the form of direct government intervention, and argued that a managed bankruptcy of struggling automobile companies should instead be accompanied by federal guarantees for post-bankruptcy financing from the private sector.

After the 2008 election, Romney laid the groundwork for a 2012 presidential campaign by using his Free and Strong America political action committee (PAC) to raise money for other Republican candidates and pay his existing political staff's salaries and consulting fees. A network of former staff and supporters around the nation were eager for him to run again. He continued to give speeches and raise funds for Republicans, but fearing overexposure, turned down many potential media appearances. He also spoke before business, educational, and motivational groups. From 2009 to 2011, he served on the board of directors of Marriott International, founded by his namesake J. Willard Marriott. He had previously served on it from 1993 to 2002.

In 2009, the Romneys sold their primary residence in Belmont and their ski chalet in Utah, leaving them an estate along Lake Winnipesaukee in Wolfeboro, New Hampshire, and an oceanfront home in the La Jolla district of San Diego, California, which they had bought the year before. The La Jolla home proved beneficial in location and climate for Ann Romney's multiple sclerosis therapies and for recovering from her late 2008 diagnosis of mammary ductal carcinoma in situ and subsequent lumpectomy. Both it and the New Hampshire estate were near some of their grandchildren. Romney maintained his voting registration in Massachusetts, however, and bought a smaller condominium in Belmont during 2010. In February 2010, Romney had a minor altercation with LMFAO member Skyler Gordy, known as Sky Blu, on an airplane flight.

Romney released his book, No Apology: The Case for American Greatness, in March 2010, and undertook an 18-state book tour to promote it. In the book, he writes of his belief in American exceptionalism, and presents his economic and geopolitical views rather than anecdotes about his personal or political life. It debuted atop The New York Times Best Seller list. Romney donated his earnings from the book to charity.

Immediately after the March 2010 passage of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, Romney attacked the landmark legislation as "an unconscionable abuse of power" and said it should be repealed. The antipathy Republicans felt for it created a potential problem for Romney, since the new federal law was in many ways similar to the Massachusetts health care reform passed during his gubernatorial tenure; as one Associated Press article stated, "Obamacare ... looks a lot like Romneycare." While acknowledging that his plan was an imperfect work in progress, Romney did not back away from it. He defended the state-level health insurance mandate that underpinned it, calling the bill the right answer to Massachusetts's problems at the time.

On April 11, 2011, Romney announced, in a video taped outdoors at the University of New Hampshire, that he had formed an exploratory committee for a run for the Republican presidential nomination. Quinnipiac University political science professor Scott McLean said, "We all knew that he was going to run. He's really been running for president ever since the day after the 2008 election."

Romney stood to benefit from the Republican electorate's tendency to nominate candidates who had previously run for president, and thus appeared to be next in line to be chosen. The early stages of the race found him as the apparent front-runner in a weak field, especially in terms of fundraising prowess and organization. Perhaps his greatest hurdle in gaining the Republican nomination was party opposition to the Massachusetts health care reform law that he had shepherded five years earlier. As many potential Republican candidates with star power and fundraising ability decided not to run (including Mike Pence, John Thune, Haley Barbour, Mike Huckabee, and Mitch Daniels), Republican party figures searched for plausible alternatives to Romney.

On June 2, 2011, Romney formally announced the start of his campaign. Speaking on a farm in Stratham, New Hampshire, he focused on the economy and criticized Obama's handling of it. He said, "In the campaign to come, the American ideals of economic freedom and opportunity need a clear and unapologetic defense, and I intend to make it – because I have lived it."

Romney raised $56 million in 2011, more than double the amount raised by any of his Republican opponents, and refrained from spending his own money on the campaign. He initially pursued a low-key, low-profile strategy. Michele Bachmann staged a brief surge in polls, which preceded a poll surge in September 2011 by Rick Perry, who had entered the race the month before. Perry and Romney exchanged sharp criticisms of each other during a series of debates among the Republican candidates. The October 2011 decisions of Palin and Chris Christie not to run effectively settled the field of candidates. Perry faded after poor performances in those debates, while Herman Cain's "long-shot" bid gained popularity until allegations of sexual misconduct derailed it.

Romney continued to seek support from a wary Republican electorate; at this point in the race, his poll numbers were relatively flat and at a historically low level for a Republican front-runner. After the charges of flip-flopping that marked his 2008 campaign began to accumulate again, Romney said in November 2011: "I've been as consistent as human beings can be." In the month before voting began, Newt Gingrich experienced a significant surge – taking a solid lead in national polls and most of the early caucus and primary states – before settling back into parity or worse with Romney following a barrage of negative ads from Restore Our Future, a pro-Romney Super PAC.

During the first year after his defeat, Romney generally kept a low profile, with his ordinary daily activities around San Diego captured via social media glimpses. In December 2012, he joined the board of Marriott International for a third stint as a director. In March 2013, Romney gave a reflective interview on Fox News Sunday, saying, "It kills me not to be there, not to be in the White House doing what needs to be done." He again expressed regret at the "47 percent" remark, saying "There's no question that hurt and did real damage to my campaign." (He echoed both those sentiments a year later.) Romney began working as executive partner group chairman for Solamere Capital, a private capital firm in Boston owned by his son Tagg. He was also involved in supporting several charitable causes.

The Romneys bought a home in the Deer Valley area of Park City, Utah, and a property in Holladay, Utah, where they planned to tear down an existing house and build a new one. They also gained long-sought permission to replace their La Jolla home with a much bigger one, including a car elevator that had brought some derision during the 2012 campaign. Romney and his siblings continued to own a cottage in a gated community called Beach O' Pines south of Grand Bend, Ontario, which has been in the family for more than 60 years. With the new acquisitions the couple briefly had five homes, near each of their five sons and their families, and the couple continued to spend considerable time with their grandchildren, who by 2013, numbered 22. They then sold the condominium in Belmont and decided to make their main residence in Utah, switching their voter registration. The 2014 documentary film Mitt showed a behind-the-scenes, family-based perspective on both of Romney's presidential campaigns and received positive reviews for humanizing Romney and illustrating the toll campaigning takes.

Romney thought he might be branded a "loser for life" and fade into an obscurity like his fellow former Massachusetts governor Michael Dukakis (a similar figure with no obvious base of political support who had lost what his party considered a winnable presidential election) but, to the surprise of many political observers, that did not happen. Romney reemerged onto the political scene in the run-up to the 2014 U.S. midterm elections, endorsing, campaigning, and fundraising for a number of Republican candidates, especially those running for the U.S. Senate.

By early 2014, the lack of a clear mainstream Republican candidate for the 2016 presidential election led some supporters, donors, and pollsters to suggest that Romney stage a third run. Regarding such a possibility, Romney at first refused. Nevertheless, speculation continued: Obama's declining popularity led to remorse among some voters; the 2014 Russian military intervention in Ukraine made Romney's "number one geopolitical foe" remark look prescient; and an August 2014 poll of Iowa Republicans showed Romney with a large lead there over other potential 2016 candidates. A July 2014 CNN poll showed Romney with a 53% to 44% lead over Obama in a hypothetical election "redo".

By early 2015, Romney was considering the idea and contacting his network of supporters. In doing so he was positioning himself in the invisible primary – the preliminary jockeying for the backing of party leaders, donors, and political operatives – against former Florida governor Jeb Bush, who had already set a likely campaign in motion and would be a rival to Romney for establishment Republican support. Despite support in some quarters for a third bid for the presidency, there was a backlash from conservatives who wanted a fresher face without a history of presidential losses, and many of Romney's past donors were not willing to commit to him again. On January 30, 2015, Romney announced that he would not run for president in 2016, saying that while he thought he could win the nomination, "one of our next generation of Republican leaders" would be better positioned to win the general election.