UTAH REPUBLICAN SENATOR Mitt Romney has said he will not run for re-election in 2024, creating a wide-open contest in a state that heavily favours Republicans and is expected to attract a crowded field.

Romney, a former presidential candidate who ran against Barack Obama and governor of Massachusetts, made the announcement in a video statement.

The 76-year-old said the country is ready for new leadership.

“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,” he said.

Romney easily won election in reliably Republican Utah in 2018 but was expected to face more resistance from his own party after he emerged as one of the most visible members to break with former president Donald Trump, who is still the party’s de facto leader.

Romney said he would be in his mid-80s by the time he finished another term. 

Answering questions from reporters, he said it would be a “great thing” if both President Joe Biden and likely GOP nominee Donald Trump stood aside from the race for the White House to make way for younger candidates. 

Impeachment

In 2020, Romney became the first senator in US history to vote to convict a president from their own party in an impeachment trial.

Romney was the only Republican to vote against Trump in his first impeachment and one of seven to vote to convict him in the second.

Trump was acquitted by the Senate both times.

Romney was booed by a gathering of the Utah Republican Party’s most active members months after his vote at the second impeachment trial, and a measure to censure him narrowly failed.

Members of the party even flung the term “Mitt Romney Republican” at their opponents on the campaign trail in 2022’s midterm elections.

Still, Romney has been seen as broadly popular in Utah, which has long harboured a band of the party that has favoured civil conservatism and resisted Trump’s norm-busting style.

The state is home to the anti-Trump Lincoln Project; the anti-Trump Republican Evan McMullin, who launched a longshot 2016 presidential campaign; and Republican governor Spencer Cox, who has been critical of Mr Trump and is also up for re-election in 2024.

More than a majority of the state’s population are members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

The faith arrived in the western state with pioneers fleeing religious persecution and spread globally with the religion’s missionaries, a legacy that has left the church’s conservative members embracing immigrants and refugees.

- Additional reporting by Daragh Brophy