Mitt Romney facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Mitt Romney
Official portrait, 2019
United States Senator from Utah
In office January 3, 2019 – January 3, 2025
Preceded by	Orrin Hatch
Succeeded by	John Curtis
70th Governor of Massachusetts
In office January 2, 2003 – January 4, 2007
Lieutenant	Kerry Healey
Preceded by	Jane Swift (acting)
Succeeded by	Deval Patrick
Personal details
Born	Willard Mitt Romney (1947-03-12) March 12, 1947 (age 78) Detroit, Michigan, U.S.
Political party	Republican (1993–present)
Other political affiliations	Independent (before 1993)
Spouse	Ann Davies ​ (m. 1969)​
Children	5, including Tagg
Parents	George W. Romney Lenore LaFount
Relatives	Romney family
Education	Stanford University Brigham Young University (BA) Harvard University (JD, MBA)
Awards	List of honors and awards
Signature

Willard Mitt Romney (born March 12, 1947) is an American businessman and former politician. He served as a United States senator from Utah from 2019 to 2025 and as the 70th governor of Massachusetts from 2003 to 2007. He was the Republican Party's nominee in the 2012 U.S. presidential election.

Early life and education

Willard Mitt Romney was born on March 12, 1947, at Harper University Hospital in Detroit, Michigan, one of four children born to automobile executive George W. Romney and former actress and homemaker Lenore Romney (née LaFount). His mother was a native of Logan, Utah, and his father was born to American parents in a Mormon colony in Chihuahua, Mexico. Of primarily English descent, he also has Scottish and German ancestry.

Romney in Cranbrook School's 1965 yearbook

Romney has three older siblings: Margo, Jane, and Scott. Mitt was the youngest by nearly six years. His parents named him after a family friend, businessman J. Willard Marriott, and his father's cousin, Milton "Mitt" Romney, a former quarterback for the Chicago Bears. Romney was called "Billy" until kindergarten, when he expressed a preference for "Mitt." In 1953, the family moved from Detroit to the affluent suburb of Bloomfield Hills and his father became the chairman and CEO of American Motors the following year and helped the company avoid bankruptcy and return to profitability. By 1959, his father had become a nationally known figure in print and on television, and Mitt idolized him.

Romney attended public elementary schools until seventh grade, when he enrolled as one of only a few Mormon students at Cranbrook School, a private upscale boys' preparatory school a few miles from his home. Many students there came from backgrounds even more privileged than his. Not particularly athletic, he also did not distinguish himself academically. He participated in his father's successful 1962 Michigan gubernatorial campaign, and later worked as an intern in the governor's office. Romney took up residence at Cranbrook when his newly elected father began spending most of his time at the state capitol.

At Cranbrook, Romney helped manage the ice hockey team, and joined the pep squad. During his senior year, he joined the cross country running team. He belonged to 11 school organizations and school clubs, including the Blue Key Club, a booster group he had started. During his final year there, his academic record improved but fell short of excellence. In March of his senior year, he began dating Ann Davies; she attended the private Kingswood School, Cranbrook's sister school. The two became informally engaged around the time he graduated from high school in June 1965.

Mitt Romney and Ann Romney with George Romney and Lenore Romney at the White House in 1969

In 1971 Romney graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in English from Brigham Young University (BYU) and in 1975 he received a JD–MBA degree from Harvard.

Career

Campaigning for U.S. Senate in Holyoke, Massachusetts, 1994

Romney, as president and CEO of the Salt Lake Organizing Committee for the 2002 Winter Olympics, speaking before a curling match

Romney's gubernatorial campaign logo from 2002

Romney announcing a Save America's Treasures Historic Preservation grant for the Old North Church in Boston, 2003

Governor Romney received a tour of the aircraft carrier USS John F. Kennedy on May 20, 2005, as part of celebrating Armed Forces Day

Mitt and Ann Romney at the White House Correspondents Dinner, 2005

Holding an "Ask Mitt Anything" session in Ames, Iowa, in May 2007

Romney signing copies of his new book No Apology: The Case for American Greatness for service members at Marine Corps Air Station Miramar in March 2010

Giving an interview at a supporters rally in Paradise Valley, Arizona

Romney campaign event in Toledo, Ohio

With running mate Paul Ryan in Norfolk, Virginia, during the vice presidential selection announcement on August 11, 2012

County-by-county results of the election, shaded by percentage won: Obama in blue, Romney in red

Mitt and Ann Romney with Paul Ryan in 2015

Romney being sworn in as Senator from Utah by Vice President Mike Pence

Romney with President Donald Trump, Kellyanne Conway, and Alex Azar during a White House listening session on the youth vaping and electronic cigarette epidemic

Romney and other Republican Senators meet with President Joe Biden to discuss COVID-19 relief

After graduation, Romney became a management consultant and in 1977 joined Bain & Company in Boston. As Bain's chief executive officer (CEO), he 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.

After stepping down from Bain Capital and his local leadership role in the LDS Church, Romney was the Republican nominee in the 1994 United States Senate election in Massachusetts. After losing to five-term incumbent Ted Kennedy, he resumed his position at Bain Capital. Years later, a successful stint as president and CEO of the then-struggling Salt Lake Organizing Committee for the 2002 Winter Olympics led to a relaunch of his political career. Elected governor of Massachusetts in 2002, Romney helped develop and later signed a health care reform law (commonly called "Romneycare") that provided near-universal health insurance access through state-level subsidies and individual mandates to purchase insurance. He also presided over the elimination of a projected $1.2–1.5 billion deficit through a combination of spending cuts, increased fees, and closing corporate tax loopholes. He did not seek reelection in 2006, focusing instead on his campaign for the Republican nomination in the 2008 U.S. presidential election, ultimately losing the nomination to Senator John McCain. He ran for and won the 2012 Republican presidential nomination, becoming the first LDS Church member to be a major party's nominee. He lost the election to President Obama.

After reestablishing residency in Utah, Romney announced his campaign for the U.S. Senate seat held by the retiring Orrin Hatch in the 2018 election; he defeated state representative Mike Kennedy in the Republican primary and Democratic nominee Jenny Wilson in the general election. In doing so, he became only the third person ever to be elected governor of one state and U.S. senator for another state.

In 2020, Romney was the lone Republican to vote to convict Donald Trump in his first impeachment trial, making him the first senator ever to have voted to remove a president of the same party from office. Romney also voted to convict in Trump's second trial in 2021. He marched alongside Black Lives Matter protestors, voted to confirm Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court, supported gun control measures, and did not vote for Trump in the 2016 and 2020 presidential elections. In 2023, Romney announced he would not run for reelection in 2024 and retired from the Senate when his term expired in 2025.

Personal life

Romney married Ann Davies in 1969; they have five sons.

Political positions

Romney meeting with President Obama after the 2012 presidential election.

In addition to calling for cuts in federal government spending to help reduce the national debt, Romney proposed measures intended to limit the growth of entitlement programs, such as introducing means testing and gradually raising the eligibility ages for receipt of Social Security and Medicare. He supported substantial increases in military spending and promised to invest more heavily in military weapons programs while increasing the number of active-duty military personnel. He was very supportive of the directions taken by the budget proposals of Paul Ryan, though he later proposed his own budget plan.

Romney pledged to lead an effort to repeal the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act ("Obamacare") and replace it with a system that gives states more control over Medicaid and makes health insurance premiums tax-advantaged for individuals in the same way they are for businesses. He favored repeal of the Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act and the Sarbanes–Oxley Act and intended to replace them with what he called a "streamlined, modern regulatory framework."

He also promised to seek income tax law changes that he said would help to lower federal deficits and would stimulate economic growth. These included reducing individual income tax rates across the board by 20%, maintaining the Bush administration-era tax rate of 15% on investment income from dividends and capital gains (and eliminating this tax entirely for those with annual incomes less than $200,000), cutting the top tax rate on corporations from 35% to 25%, and eliminating the estate tax and the Alternative Minimum Tax. He promised that the loss of government revenue from these tax cuts would be offset by closing loopholes and placing limits on tax deductions and credits available to taxpayers with the highest incomes, but said that that aspect of the plan could not yet be evaluated because details would have to be worked out with Congress.

Romney opposed the use of mandatory limits on greenhouse gas emissions to deal with global warming. He stated that he believed climate change is occurring, but that he did not know how much of it could be linked to human activity. He was a proponent of increased domestic oil drilling, hydraulic fracturing ("fracking"), building more nuclear power plants, and reducing the regulatory authority of the Environmental Protection Agency. He believed North American energy independence could be achieved by 2020.

Romney called Russia America's "number one geopolitical foe", a position many ridiculed him for, including former secretary of state Madeleine Albright, who later publicly apologized to him. He has asserted that preventing Iran from obtaining nuclear capability should be America's "highest national security priority." Romney stated his strong support for Israel. He planned to formally label China a currency manipulator and take associated counteractions unless China changed its trade practices.

Electoral history

U.S. senator from Massachusetts

Governor of Massachusetts

2012 Republican nominee for President of the United States

U.S. Senator from Utah

Awards and honors

Honorary degrees

Non-academic awards and honors

Receiving the 2006 Secretary of Defense Employer Support Freedom Award on behalf of his state

People magazine included Romney in its 50 Most Beautiful People list for 2002, and in 2004, a foundation that promotes the Olympic truce gave him its inaugural Truce Ideal Award. The Cranbrook School gave him its Distinguished Alumni Award in 2005. In 2008, he shared with his wife Ann the Canterbury Medal from The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, for "refus[ing] to compromise their principles and faith" during the presidential campaign. In 2012, Time magazine included Romney in their List of The 100 Most Influential People in the World.

In 2021, Romney received the Profile in Courage Award for being the only member of his party to vote to convict Donald Trump during his first impeachment trial.

See also

In Spanish: Mitt Romney para niños

• List of governors of Massachusetts
• List of United States senators from Utah
• List of United States Republican Party presidential tickets
• President of the Organising Committee for the Olympic Games