Battle escalates between Utah's GOP senators ahead of election: report

On Friday, The Washington Postreported that aides to Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT) are increasingly fed up with his fellow Republican Utah senator, Mike Lee, demanding Romney's endorsement in his re-election fight in this November's midterm election.

"Mitt Romney’s aides were annoyed this week after his fellow senator from Utah, Mike Lee, pleaded with Romney to 'get on board' and support his reelection bid during a cable news interview, according to two people in contact with his staff," reported Hannah Knowles. "For months, Romney had made it clear — both in private and publicly — that he would stay neutral in Lee’s run for a third term against McMullin. Romney wasn’t swayed by state GOP chairman Carson Jorgensen, who said he pressed Lee’s case with Romney early this year and again last week with Romney’s staff. ;A Republican candidate should be supporting their Republican colleagues, and that’s all there is to it,' Jorgenson said in an interview."

Romney's staff, though, are having none of it. "Some blame Lee for pushing the issue: Romney aides are 'so annoyed that Mike Lee won’t leave it alone,' said a person who speaks regularly with them. Like others interviewed for this story, the person spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive topic more candidly."

This comes as Lee, a hard-right Trump ally who has previously said the United States isn't a democracy, is struggling to fend off a challenge from conservative independent Evan McMullin, who is his sole major opponent as the Utah Democratic Party is backing him. Some polls have found the race close, despite Utah being a heavily Republican state that doesn't usually have competitive general elections.

"McMullin, a former CIA officer and policy director for the House Republican Conference, has remained highly critical of Trump," said the report. "He won less than one percent of the vote nationwide in his 2016 presidential bid but more than 20 percent of the vote in Utah — where he was born and where many Mormons were turned off by Trump and his crude comments about women. More than half the state’s residents, including McMullin, belong to the Church of Latter Day Saints."

Ironically, in that 2016 election, Lee, who at the time was part of a large faction of Republicans divided over the "Access Hollywood" scandal, refused to vote for Trump — and voted for McMullin instead.

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