Mitt Romney wins Utah Republican Senate primary

(Image credit: Gene Sweeney Jr./Getty Images)

published 27 June 2018

Former Massachusetts governor and 2012 Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney won Tuesday night's GOP Senate primary in Utah, defeating state Rep. Mike Kennedy.

With 83 percent of precincts reporting, Romney has 73 percent of the vote and Kennedy 26 percent. Romney, who ran the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, was a vocal critic of President Trump during the 2016 presidential election, but toned it down after Kennedy questioned during the campaign whether he would support Trump's agenda. Romney will face Democrat Jenny Wilson in the November election, with both vying to fill the seat of retiring Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch. The last time Utah elected a Democratic senator was in the 1970s.

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Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.