Updated | Mitt Romney announced Friday that he will not seek the Republican Party’s nomination for president. The news first started circulating before a call Romney had scheduled with supporters to begin at 11 a.m. EST.
Shortly after the call, an account for Romney published what appears to be a transcript of Romney’s remarks on Medium, a free online publishing platform that also hosted an early release of President Barack Obama’s State of the Union address last week.
“After putting considerable thought into making another run for president, I’ve decided it is best to give other leaders in the Party the opportunity to become our next nominee,” he said, according to the transcript. “I am convinced that we could win the nomination, but fully realize it would have been difficult test and a hard fight.”
Romney emailed supporters on Thursday night to say he would offer “an update” on a potential run during the Friday conference call, according to Bloomberg. The transcript says that wife Ann Romney, donors and state politicians took part in the call. Romney also indicated that he was calling from New York City.
News of the former Massachusetts governor and 2012 Republican presidential nominee’s interest in running a third time began building earlier this month, when he reportedly told donors he was considering another run. That came less than four weeks after former Florida governor Jeb Bush announced on Facebook that he would “actively explore the possibility of running” for president.
Romney and Bush met privately last week in Utah. Representatives for the former governors confirmed the meeting to Reuters, but did not provide details on what the two discussed.
“It looks like Romney was eager to run. He thought maybe the world would open up for him, but it didn’t,” says Robert Erikson, a professor of political science at Columbia University and an American elections expert. “He had a lot of opposition from the right in his party.”
“Mitt Romney has been a leader in our party for many years,” Bush wrote on Facebook Friday, following the news that Romney would not run. “There are few people who have worked harder to elect Republicans across the country than he has. Though I’m sure today’s decision was not easy, I know that Mitt Romney will never stop advocating for renewing America’s promise through upward mobility, encouraging free enterprise and strengthening our national defense.”
Bush continued, “Mitt is a patriot, and I join many in hoping his days of serving our nation and our party are not over. I look forward to working with him to ensure all Americans have a chance to rise up.”
In the transcript of the call, Romney avoided endorsing Bush or any other potential candidate. “I believe that one of our next generation of Republican leaders, one who may not be as well known as I am today, one who has not yet taken their message across the country, one who is just getting started, may well emerge as being better able to defeat the Democrat nominee,” he said.
The Alfalfa Club in Washington, D.C., an exclusive social organization, is inducting Romney as a member tomorrow, The New York Times reports. Jeb Bush is also a member, according to NNDB.
Romney and his wife had previously said he would not run again. “Done. Done. Done,” Ann Romney told the Los Angeles Times in October last year.
“You can’t imagine how hard it is for Ann and me to step aside, especially knowing of your support and the support of so many people across the country. But we believe it is for the best of the Party and the nation,” Romney said during the call, adding that it is “unlikely” that he will change his mind.
This was the third time that Romney has posted on Medium. In October, he published a letter to his wife, who was then inaugurating the Ann Romney Center for Neurological Diseases. In July, he wrote about a family vacation.
I’ve decided it is best to give other leaders in the Party the opportunity to become our next nominee https://t.co/56pcErahDB
— Mitt Romney (@MittRomney) January 30, 2015