Romney making Senate race announcement in two weeks

Former Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney will reveal later this month whether he’ll run for Senate in Utah.

Romney announced the timeline in a short tweet Thursday, saying he would reveal his decision on Feb. 15.

“Looking forward to making an announcement on February 15th about the Utah Senate race,” he tweeted, along with a link to his website.

Looking forward to making an announcement on February 15th about the Utah Senate race. https://t.co/OLXWZWREEK

— Mitt Romney (@MittRomney) February 1, 2018

Romney is expected to launch a bid to replace retiring Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), a bid that would make him the far-and-away favorite. 

His potential candidacy has been the source of speculation for years, with Senate Republicans excited at the chance for the former Massachusetts governor to join them in the body.

Romney has been a vocal critic of President Trump’s since the campaign trail, with a brief truce during the transition quickly crumbling. He’s regularly criticized the president, most notably for Trump’s remarks after a woman was killed protesting a white supremacist rally in Virginia and more recently after reports Trump referred to Haiti, El Salvador and some African nations as “shithole countries.”

Trump made a public show of heaping praise onto Hatch as he weighed retirement in what many saw as an attempt to keep Romney out of Washington.

But Hatch ultimately decided to retire, telling reporters that Romney would be his pick to replace him. And Trump called Romney soon after to wish him well amid his deliberations about a bid for Senate.

-Updated 3:42 p.m.