Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) announced on Wednesday that he is retiring from the Senate.
“I have spent my last 25 years in public service of one kind or another. At the end of another term, I’d be in my mid-eighties,” Romney, 76, said in a video posted to Twitter. “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.”
“While I’m not running for reelection, I’m not retiring from the fight,” he said. “I’ll be your United States senator until January of 2025.”
Romney served as the governor of Massachusetts from 2003 to 2007. He ran for the Republican nomination for president in 2008 but fell short. He returned four years later, in 2012, and won the party’s nomination before losing the general election to Barack Obama.
Romney easily won election to the Senate in Utah in 2018. In the Senate he voted twice to convict Donald Trump during the former president’s impeachment trials. Romney is a vocal critic of the one term president.
In his statement Wednesday, Romney suggested it was time for President Joe Biden and Donald Trump to step aside also.
“We face critical challenges — mounting national debt, climate change, and the ambitious authoritarians of Russia and China. Neither President Biden nor former President Trump are leading their party to confront them,” Romney said. “The next generation of leaders must take America to the next stage of global leadership.”
