Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, said Tuesday that he has urged Democratic Sens. Cory Booker of New Jersey and Mark Warner of Virginia to challenge President Joe Biden for the 2024 nomination.
Romney, taking questions during his annual E2 Summit in Park City, Utah, said the next likely Democratic candidate would be a progressive like Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., or Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., the Deseret News reported.
"And they don't want that. They don't think that's right for the country, either," he said.
Romney said that both political parties appear to be "schizophrenic" and cannot figure out what they stand for.
"I think our party has multiple personality disorder," he said. "And I think the Democratic Party does as well. I think we're schizophrenic. We don't know what we are or what we stand for within our party right now."
Romney is opposed to having Donald Trump as the Republican nominee in 2024 and had four of the former president's challengers attend the conference with major party donors and other influencers.
Former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, former Vice President Mike Pence, and North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum gave speeches during the event; and Romney said he would be happy to have any of them representing the party in the November election instead of Trump, the report said.
Romney ran for president in 2012, losing to incumbent Democrat Barack Obama.
According to the report, Romney's 2012 running mate and co-organizer of the forum, former Rep. Paul Ryan, said that while neither party is functioning properly, Democrats have a larger "mess" to clean up trying to reconcile the more progressive ideology, while Republicans are battling with Trump's "cult of personality."
"But it's, frankly, not that simple," Ryan said. "What does the Republican Party, the conservative movement, look like after this?"
National polling website FiveThirtyEight has Trump leading the GOP field with 58%, followed by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis with 12.2%, businessman Vivek Ramaswamy with 7.6%, Haley with 6.3%, Pence 4%, Christie 3.2%, South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott 2.3%, and Burgum 0.9%.
On the Democratic side, Biden has 60% support, and author Marianne Willaimson is not listed, according to the site.
Democrat Robert F. Kennedy Jr. left the party Monday with 15.3% support to run as an independent.
Charles Kim ✉
Charles Kim, a Newsmax general assignment writer, is an award-winning journalist with more than 30 years in reporting on news and politics.
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