Will Romney challenge Trump in 2020?

Could the GOP's last two presidential nominees go head-to-head in 2020?

After Senator-elect Mitt Romney wrote an op-ed critical of President Trump on Tuesday, The Washington Post reported that the idea of a Republican challenging Trump in 2020 has "suddenly turned more serious," whether that challenger be former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley or Romney himself.

One Republican financier said that prominent Romney donors are making clear that they're ready to throw their support behind him should he decide to run, and Romney allies "have been talking up Romney 2020 for months behind the scenes" and are "hoping to stoke interest and lay the political groundwork for him."

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Romney, who hasn't even officially started his new Senate job yet, has not signaled that he might run against Trump and apparently hasn't been involved in this behind-the-scenes 2020 chatter. In fact, he suggested in June 2018 that the president probably has the 2020 nomination locked up, predicting that he will be "re-nominated by my party easily" and will be "re-elected solidly," per Politico.

Still, a lot may change in 2019, and former White House strategist Stephen Bannon apparently sees Romney's recent op-ed as the beginning of a movement to challenge Trump from the right, simply telling The Post, "It begins."