“I believe I can help bring Utah’s values and Utah lessons to Washington,” declared Mitt Romney in the launch of his 2018 campaign for U.S. Senate. “Let there be no question, I will fight for Utah.”
Predicated on a pledge of constituent representation, fiscal responsibility, and intellectual integrity, Romney was elected to the U.S. Senate and currently serves in the upper chamber as Utah’s junior senator.
There’s just one problem. The carpetbagging former governor of Massachusettes and 2012 Republican presidential nominee has routinely sold out the people whose values he pledged to faithfully represent and routinely capitulated to the Washington establishment’s consensus.
Routinely showing himself to be out of touch with the wishes of his constituents, Romney, nominally a conservative Republican, has so far voted with President Biden’s radical agenda nearly 60 percent of the time, long ago abandoning any semblance of fiscal or social conservatism. He also nearly sabotaged the reelection of his state’s senior senator, the stalwart conservative Mike Lee.
[READ: GOP Senators Baffled By Mitt Romney’s Ploy To Oust Mike Lee — And Maybe Thwart A Majority]
So what are Utahns to do?
Trent Staggs, the current mayor of Riverton, Utah, believes he has the answer: kick Mitt out of office.
Hoping to beat Romney in the upcoming Republican primary, Staggs is a first-time candidate for federal office who has already raked up considerable local support from Utah’s Fraternal Order of Police and a bevy of municipal officeholders.
Speaking with The Federalist, Staggs emphasized his focus on actually amplifying the concerns of Utahns in Congress’s upper chamber, positioning his candidacy as a holistic rebuttal to Romney’s initial pitch.
“Conservatives nationwide understand how important it is to replace Mitt Romney with a real conservative,” he said. “He’s disconnected from Utahns. … I’m an America First candidate, and that’s what [Utahns] want.”
Romney notably voted to impeach former President Donald Trump and to codify same-sex “marriage” into federal law, and he fundraised on behalf of recently vanquished Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney who was one of the token Republicans on the House of Representatives’ bogus Jan. 6 Committee.
[READ: What Does Mitt Romney Even Stand For? An Investigation]
Noting Romney’s absence from Utah’s last two Republican conventions, Staggs said, “Maintaining accessibility and connection [with] constituents” is a major emphasis of his candidacy, while drastically reducing federal spending and scaling back federal regulation would be focal points of his tenure in the Senate.
“Spending is [the] No. 1 issue that [Romney] hasn’t taken seriously,” the mayor said, stressing his support for a balanced budget amendment being added to the U.S. Constitution. “We don’t have a revenue problem. … We have a spending problem,” said Staggs.
Staggs platform also expresses support for making sure “educators work for parents and children, not the other way around,” purging the federal government of “wokeness,” making a “return to federalism” wherein Western states will be able to reduce the federal government’s presence and use their land as they see fit, and establishing energy independence.
Having forsaken the people he sought to serve, Romney has long prioritized the maintenance of the swamp’s status quo. Perhaps, Utahns would be better served by someone who cares more about showing up than CNN appearances and writing NYT columns.
Samuel Mangold-Lenett is a staff editor at The Federalist. His writing has been featured in the Daily Wire, Townhall, The American Spectator, and other outlets. He is a 2022 Claremont Institute Publius Fellow. Follow him on Twitter @smlenett.
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