ALPINE, Utah — 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.
The interview and its fallout marked an escalation of election-year tensions in the unusual relationship between Utah’s two Republican senators — one who has often aligned himself with former president Donald Trump and another who has been one of the most prominent Trump critics in the GOP. Their complicated dynamic has become a focal point in the final weeks of Lee’s reelection bid, a more competitive race than many anticipated.
The strains over Romney’s decision to stay out of the contest underscore how the race is testing the GOP’s unity, as independent challenger Evan McMullin tries to assemble a big-tent coalition of Democrats, independents and moderate Republicans while running against “political extremes”…
This article was written by Hannah Knowles and originally published on www.washingtonpost.com