The Backstory on Senator Lee's Desperate Re-election begging for help from Romney [View all]

From today's Political Wire

Lee is currently polling @ 44% while staunch Never Trumper McMullin is at 37% with a 19% undecideds. Typically undecideds break against an incumbent. Lee is desperate.

To understand why Romney hasn't endorsed Lee you have to go back to Former Utah Senator Bob Bennett. Bennett was a soft spoken likable Conservative who had a terrible voting record but maintained high principles and good relationships with his colleagues. His vote against a law banning flag burning on first amendment grounds killed the bill. While Bennett was dying of Pancreatic Cancer he forced his son to put him in a wheel chair and he went to every room in the hospital that had a Muslim patient and personally apologized for Trump's Muslim ban. The real crime that Bennett committed? When asked about Obama he said "While I disagree with his politics I quite like him and know that he is a fine Christian gentleman."



In 2010 Lee organized a Tea Party revolt against Bennett who regularly won by 30 points in the General Election. To keep Bennett off the Primary Ballot he stacked the state convention with tea party radicals and with only the top two going on the Primary Ballot was able to keep Bennett off the ballot.

The final vote was

Mike Lee 982 28.75%
Tim Bridgewater 917 26.84%
Bob Bennett 885 25.91%


As the convention was getting underway Bennett's team realized it was going to be a squeaker and flew in former Massachusetts Governor, and the guy who saved the Salt Lake City Winter Olympics, Mitt Romney to take the stage and publicly urge Utah Republicans at the state convention to support Bennett. Had he been allowed to speak he would have almost certainly been able to switch the 18 votes needed to get 2nd place and would have won the primary against Lee.

Romney was never able to speak. As soon as he was on the stage Lee had his supporters boo and scream at the top of their voices to drown out Romney. After several minutes Romney was booed off the stage and experienced the most embarassing political insult in his career.

And now Lee is begging for Romney's support.

The thing about the 19% undecideds? They are mostly made up of liberals who would love to defeat Lee and just need time to reconcile voting for an anti Trump Republican like McMullin.

Forced into a binary decision it is quite possible that the undecideds will overwhelmingly support any one but Lee and that is why Lee is on the floor groveling for support from the man that he publicly humiliated so that he could defeat a Republican who stood on principle and personally stood up for then Senator Obama.