How Supporters of Romney Influence Utah Senate GOP Race
Associates and allies of Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT) are supporting centrist candidates in the Utah Republican Senate primary. The contenders seek to balance distancing from Romney while portraying themselves as conservative options. Major donors back Rep. John Curtis and former Utah House Speaker Brad Wilson, shaping a competitive 2024 race for Romney’s successor. Romney’s influence and donations play a pivotal role in this dynamic primary contest.
Associates and allies of Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT) are backing the two candidates with the most centrist records in the Utah Republican Senate primary election, a fine line to walk as the rivals seek to distance themselves from the outgoing senator and portray themselves as the conservative option.
A number of prominent Romney donors and old staffers are backing Rep. John Curtis and former Utah House Speaker Brad Wilson — with Wilson inheriting a notable portion of Utah’s donor class, according to a review of campaign filings with the Federal Election Commission.
While the Utah seat is all but certain to maintain its GOP status, the primary is heating up to be one of the most competitive of the 2024 cycle, with a crowded list of Republicans aiming to replace Romney. Many of the major donors within the state have ties to the Utah Republican, who’s well known for bucking his own party — and an alignment with the outgoing senator could likely be used as fodder for attacks from the Right.
“It’s politically toxic, if you’re trying to win a conservative primary, to inherit Romney’s staff,” a person close to Wilson’s campaign told the Washington Examiner. “If you want to win, you’ve got to distance yourself from Romney as much as possible.”
According to the FEC filings, many of Wilson’s campaign contributors are some of Romney’s most well-known supporters. The donors include Utah real estate developer Kem Gardner, one of Romney’s closest friends, along with his wife Carolyn Barnes Gardner and other members of the prominent Gardner family, who have given $39,600 in total. Dan Hemmert, a former Republican state senator who recruited Romney to run for Senate in 2017, donated the maximum of $9,900, along with his wife, Natalie Hemmert. Scott Keller, a real estate mogul who also worked to get Romney in the White House, also donated $2,500.
Gail Miller, a billionaire who owns the Larry H. Miller Group and a former majority owner of the Utah Jazz NBA team, and other members of the Miller family contributed $23,100 to Wilson’s campaign. The group, in March 2022, purchased Wilson’s real estate construction company, Destination Homes — one of the biggest homebuilders in the state. The details of the acquisition amount were not disclosed. But $1.8 million has flowed from Wilson’s personal coffers into his campaign.
Wilson’s campaign manager, Caleb Worthen, was also Romney’s regional field director during his 2012 presidential bid.
But Romney’s camp is not just involved in Wilson’s campaign. A number of alumni staffers and donors tied to the Utah Republican held a January fundraiser for Curtis shortly after he announced he would run. One notable host was Spencer Zwick, who raised more than a billion dollars as Romney’s finance chairman for his 2012 presidential bid. Other people listed on the fundraiser include Matt Waldrip, Romney’s former campaign manager and previous chief of staff in the Senate, and Alex Dunn, who served as Romney’s chief of staff during his governorship in Massachusetts. Zwick had previously urged Dunn to launch a primary challenge to Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) in 2015.
Keller, who donated to Wilson’s campaign, had hosted the event as well.
Curtis’s campaign filings haven’t been made public yet, but they will be made available later in April.
Along with inheriting Romney’s donors, Wilson has also hired national political consulting agencies PoolHouse and Axiom Strategies for their services — underlining his efforts to raise his profile as he lags in the polls. In the first poll of Utah’s Senate race, Curtis was in the lead for Republican voters with 18% of the vote — with Wilson falling in third with 8% of the vote, behind Brent Hatch, an attorney and the son of former Sen. Orrin Hatch, at 14%. Mayor Trent Staggs of Riverton, Utah, garnered 3% of support.
Romney previously hired Poolhouse to orchestrate his media strategy during his 2018 Senate bid, and the agency had also previously worked for Curtis.
Utah’s political talent pool is relatively small, and its political circles are tight. It’s to be expected that the different campaigns will likely have a mix of donors and staffers that overlap, ranging from different ends of the ideological spectrum. For example, Keller donated to both Lee and Romney in 2022.
But even as Wilson is tapping into Romney’s old campaign infrastructure, the former state lawmaker is distancing himself from his more centrist record — painting himself as closer to Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) on the political spectrum than to Romney in hopes of clutching the Republican nomination.
In an interview with the National Journal, Wilson stated that he sees “the world through a similar lens” as Lee. However, his record shows that he’s more centrist than Lee — closer to Romney.
“Anyone who knows Mitt Romney and anyone who knows Brad Wilson knows that they are much more aligned on issues than what the public perception is,” a state lawmaker told the Washington Examiner. “I think Brad is trying to distance himself from Mitt Romney right now … and the only reason why he’s doing that is because Mitt is not very popular in Utah. But he wants the machine of Mitt Romney behind him.”
According to a legislative analysis from the Conservative Political Action Conference, Wilson’s lifetime score stands at 71.4. It hit a low of 57 during his first year as Utah House speaker but has generally increased as time goes on. His all-time high came in 2017, with a score of 85. Romney’s lifetime score is 62.3, while Lee has a nearly perfect score of 99.
And a closer look at his record underlines his centrist leanings. In 2019, Wilson had signed a Utah compact that committed the signatories to uphold “anti-racist” principles and actions. But Republicans have attacked diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts as a cultural affront — and Wilson has since joined in, calling it “a threat to our country” during a Weber County Republican Women forum. In 2021, Wilson supported a bipartisan bill that gives grants to help developers create low-income housing in rural areas and for tenants having trouble paying their rent. And in 2020, Wilson voted for a bill that enacts a $50 million electric vehicle charging infrastructure program.
However, in more recent years, the former Utah House speaker has leaned into more conservative pursuits — passing several bills that would enact restrictions on abortions following the overturn of Roe v. Wade, overseeing the largest tax cut in state history, and passing a bill that would prohibit a student of the male sex who identifies as a transgender woman from participating in women’s sports.
But Wilson’s distancing himself from Romney is a subtle acknowledgement that an alignment with the current senator could prove politically disadvantageous in the hunt for the Republican nomination. Romney has frequently faced GOP criticism for bucking his own party, most notably by twice voting to convict former President Donald Trump in impeachment proceedings.
Other candidates in the race are looking to distance themselves from Romney. But Curtis, notably, is looking to dissociate himself from both of the incumbent senators.
“If people are expecting me to be Mitt Romney, I’ll disappoint them. And if they’re expected me to be Mike Lee, I’ll disappoint them,” he told Utah publication Deseret News back in January. “I’m John Curtis.”
In a brief interview with the Washington Examiner in March, Romney mentioned that while he was not in favor of one candidate over the other, he would be “happy to see Brad Wilson or John Curtis” in the Senate.
“Utah is fortunate to have several candidates who are interested in serving in the Senate, and Senator Romney appreciates their willingness to serve,” Liz Johnson, Romney’s chief of staff, said in a later statement to the Washington Examiner. “He is staying out of the race.”
While the senator is not issuing an endorsement, his former camp is elevating candidates that could follow in Romney’s footsteps if they choose to work with centrists in the Senate. It’s a shrinking group, now that Romney, Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV), and Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (I-AZ) are retiring from the upper chamber.
Other prominent members of Utah’s political circles are getting involved in the primary. Gov. Spencer Cox (R-UT) has endorsed Wilson — and went as far as to discourage Curtis from running at all during a meeting between him, Cox, and Wilson, according to two people with knowledge of the discussions. Cox’s comment followed Curtis’s sudden announcement to run after issuing an op-ed in which he said he would do the opposite. According to the sources, Curtis’s response was something to the likes of: “Well, watch me.”
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A spokesperson for Curtis declined to comment on the conversation. A spokesperson for Cox’s office denied the conversation having taken place with Curtis and Wilson.
Curtis, who is well-known in Hill circles for founding the Conservative Climate Caucus, has also gained national attention as a rare Republican who backs policies to combat rising carbon emissions. He first stepped onto the Hill in 2018, launching the group in 2021 with just 40 members — and doubling its membership in three years.
Ten candidates have filed to run in Utah’s Republican Senate primary, including Staggs, Hatch, political adviser Carolyn Phippen, and pest control business owner Jason Walton.
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