The 2012 GOP nominee, Gov. Mitt Romney, revealed Friday afternoon that he will vote for Sen. Ted Cruz in Tuesday’s Utah primary caucus.
The former Massachusetts governor tweeted on Friday:
Cruz quickly responded with his own post shortly after:
On March 3 Romney gave a highly publicized speech in which he lambasted GOP presidential frontrunner Donald Trump and urged American voters to vote for the candidate that “has the best chance to beat Mr. Trump in any given state.”
Jason Perry, the Director of the Hinckley Institute of Politics at the University of Utah, host of the Romney speech, told Breitbart News that the vocal opposition to Trump was “just Act One” for Romney.
Leading into March 15 primaries where Ohio governor John Kasich and Florida senator Marco Rubio faced pivotal primaries in their home states Romney actively supported each of the candidates. The failed 2012 nominee recorded robo-calls for both Kasich to run in Ohio and Rubio to run in Florida. Romney also hit the campaign trail in Ohio making an appearance at a Kasich rally.
While the popular Ohio governor did in fact bank his first win with a victory in winner-take-all Ohio that garnered all of the state’s 66 delegates, Rubio took a crushing Florida loss to Trump. After the loss, he left the race while Kasich remains in, despite an insurmountable lag in delegate count.
Cruz did not utilize the 2012 nominee while campaigning ahead of the March 15 primaries and it does not appear he has in the march toward Tuesday’s contests. Earlier this month it was reported that Romney identified Cruz as the “emerging” Trump alternative.
Not offering overwhelming excitement over the closest competitor to Trump, Romney said, “I think a lot of people were surprised by how well Ted Cruz did.”
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