page_title: Mitt Romney
section_title: Primary election
hierarchical_section_title: Mitt Romney / 2012 presidential campaign / Primary election
caption_attribution_description: Mitt Romney in Toledo, Ohio.
context_page_description: Willard Mitt Romney is an American politician, businessman and former presidential candidate who has served as the junior United States senator from Utah since January 2019. He previously served as the 70th Governor of Massachusetts from 2003 to 2007 and was the Republican Party's nominee for President of the United States in the 2012 election.
  Raised in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, by his parents, George and Lenore Romney, he spent over two years from 1966 in France as a Mormon missionary. He married Ann Davies in 1969; they have five sons. By 1971, he had participated in the political campaigns of both parents. Romney earned a Bachelor of Arts in English from Brigham Young University in 1971 and a joint JD–MBA from Harvard University in 1975. Romney became a management consultant and in 1977 joined Bain & Company in Boston. As Bain's chief executive officer, he later helped lead the company out of a financial crisis. In 1984, he co-founded and led the spin-off company Bain Capital, a private equity investment firm that became one of the largest of its kind in the nation.
context_section_description: On April 11, 2011, Romney announced, via a video taped outdoors at the University of New Hampshire, that he had formed an exploratory committee for a run for the Republican presidential nomination. Quinnipiac University political science professor Scott McLean stated, "We all knew that he was going to run. He's really been running for president ever since the day after the 2008 election."
  Romney stood to benefit from the Republican electorate's tendency to nominate candidates who had previously run for president, and thus appeared to be next in line to be chosen. The early stages of the race found him as the apparent front-runner in a weak field, especially in terms of fundraising prowess and organization. Perhaps his greatest hurdle in gaining the Republican nomination was party opposition to the Massachusetts health care reform law that he had shepherded five years earlier. As many potential Republican candidates with star power and fundraising ability decided not to run (including Mike Pence, John Thune, Haley Barbour, Mike Huckabee, and Mitch Daniels), Republican party figures searched for plausible alternatives to Romney.
  On June 2, 2011, Romney formally announced the start of his campaign. Speaking on a farm in Stratham, New Hampshire, he focused on the economy and criticized President Obama's handling of it. He said, "In the campaign to come, the American ideals of economic freedom and opportunity need a clear and unapologetic defense, and I intend to make it – because I have lived it."
  Romney raised $56 million during 2011, more than double the amount raised by any of his Republican opponents, and refrained from spending his own money on the campaign. He initially pursued a low-key, low-profile strategy. Michele Bachmann staged a brief surge in polls, which preceded a poll surge in September 2011 by Rick Perry who had entered the race the month before. Perry and Romney exchanged sharp criticisms of each other during a series of debates among the Republican candidates. The October 2011 decisions of Chris Christie and Sarah Palin not to run effectively settled the field of candidates. Perry faded after poor performances in those debates, while Herman Cain's 'long-shot' bid gained popularity until allegations of sexual misconduct derailed it.
  Romney continued to seek support from a wary Republican electorate; at this point in the race, his poll numbers were relatively flat and at a historically low level for a Republican frontrunner. After the charges of flip-flopping that marked his 2008 campaign began to accumulate again, Romney declared in November 2011: "I've been as consistent as human beings can be." In the final month before voting began, Newt Gingrich experienced a significant surge – taking a solid lead in national polls and most of the early caucus and primary states – before settling back into parity or worse with Romney following a barrage of negative ads from Restore Our Future, a pro-Romney Super PAC.
  In the initial contest, the 2012 Iowa caucuses of January 3, election officials announced Romney as ahead with 25 percent of the vote, edging out a late-gaining Rick Santorum by eight votes (an also-strong Ron Paul finished third). Sixteen days later, however, they certified Santorum as the winner by a 34-vote margin. A week after the Iowa caucuses, Romney earned a decisive win in the New Hampshire primary with a total of 39 percent of the vote; Paul finished second and Jon Huntsman Jr. third.
  In the run-up to the South Carolina Republican primary, Gingrich launched ads criticizing Romney for causing job losses while at Bain Capital, Perry referred to Romney's role there as "vulture capitalism", and Sarah Palin pressed Romney to prove his claim that he created 100,000 jobs during that time. Many conservatives rallied in defense of Romney, rejecting what they inferred as criticism of free-market capitalism. During two debates in the state, Romney fumbled questions about releasing his income tax returns, while Gingrich gained support with audience-rousing attacks on the debate moderators. Romney's double-di
caption: Romney campaign event in Toledo, Ohio
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