Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) said on Sunday that President Trump remains “without question, the most powerful voice” in the GOP.
“He will have an enormous impact on our party going forward. I believe the great majority of people who voted for Donald Trump want to make sure that his principles and his policies are pursued,” Romney told host Chuck Todd on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “He’s not disappearing by any means. He’s the 900-pound gorilla when it comes to the Republican Party.”
Romney is one of the few Republican lawmakers to congratulate Democratic candidate Joe Biden on his projected win for president on Saturday, tweeting, “Ann and I extend our congratulations to President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris. We know both of them as people of good will and admirable character. We pray that God may bless them in the days and years ahead.”
Todd noted that Romney won the largely suburban Cobb County in Georgia during his own bid for president in 2012. Romney won the county by 12 points while Biden won it by 8 points, prompting Todd to ask if the GOP had problems garnering support from voters in suburban areas.
“My party, I’m sure, has challenges as does the the opposition party, but I think I’ll let people like yourself make a call as to why people voted the way they did,” Romney said. “But I think if you look at the numbers and look at the pickup that Republicans had in statehouses across the country and Congress and holding the Senate so far, versus our loss in the presidency, you’d suggest that the presidential race was more a matter of a referendum on a person.”
Romney said he believed his party had done well when it came to running policy-driven campaigns. Romney said that the American people did not want a Green New Deal or Medicare for all, causes that are central to the progressive wing of the Democratic party.
However, the senator acknowledged the GOP’s weakness when it came to appealing to young people and minorities. The female suburban vote was not lost to Republicans, Romney said.
“Can we bring back suburban women into our party? I believe so. But we got some work to do,” Romney said.