In an upcoming book, Republican Senator Mitt Romney of Utah admitted that President Donald Trump’s strong showing in battleground states led him to believe that Trump would win reelection in November, according to an account by Business Insider.
“I think he’s going to win,” Romney is quoted in the book about the 2020 election results. “Those polls were way off. I think he’s going to pull it out.”
Romney said the results led him to have a “pit in his stomach.”
The book, “I Alone Can Fix It” by Washington Post reporters Carol D. Leonnig and Philip Rucker, covers the last year of Trump’s presidency.
Trump and Romney have had a tumultuous relationship since the Trump’s victory in the 2016 election.
Romney ‘felt a pit in his stomach’ at ‘surprisingly good’ early Trump election night numbers, book says https://t.co/ylXe3OSKvD
— US Election News (@USElection_News) July 14, 2021
Although Romney refused to support Trump in the 2016 contest, Trump still toyed with the idea of appointing Romney to the post of Secretary of State.
The interview marked the high water mark of their relationship.
Subsequently, the two have feuded in public about everything from legislation to COVID-19 to impeachment, with Romney voting to convict Trump in the 2020 and the 2021 impeachment trials.
Romney blasted Trump for the January 6th siege on the U.S. Capitol, saying they set a bad example for free elections around the world.
“So saying something and doing things that would suggest that in the free nation of the United States of America and the model of democracy for the world, that we can’t have a free and fair election would have a destructive effect on democracy around the world, not just to mention here,” Romney said in the book.
Trump did better with a number of voters in 2020 than in 2016, including with black and Latino voters, and it showed in the results from Florida on election night 2020.
