Republican Sen. Mitt Romney has not threatened to join Democrats, despite criticism of Trump

Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, has not been shy about criticizing former President Donald Trump, and at times, other members of the Republican Party.

Perhaps because of this, some social media users are baselessly claiming the senator has threatened to switch to the opposing party.

"Senator #MittRomney threatens to leave the Republican party and join Democrats," read text above a zoomed-in photo of Romney shared July 19 on Instagram.

The post had amassed more than 29,000 likes by July 27. The image and text appear to have originated from this July 19 post on X, formerly Twitter. The X post provided no evidence to back the claim, but garnered more than 1.5 million views, and a community note saying it’s false. 

The claim has no merit, Paige Waltz, a Romney spokesperson, said.

"There is zero truth to misinformation spread by online bots," Waltz said in an email to PolitiFact.

Romney has twice voted to convict Trump in impeachment trials, and famously said he voted for his wife, Ann, as a write-in candidate in 2016 rather than support Trump. 

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On July 24, the senator wrote an opinion column for The Wall Street Journal urging Republicans to unite behind one candidate and narrow the field by Feb. 26 to make it easier to defeat Trump in the party’s primaries. 

Romney has also been critical of other members of his party, such as Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., and Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., and George Santos, R-N.Y. 

Although Romney has been outspoken about fellow Republicans, and may occasionally cross the aisle to vote for bipartisan legislation or for President Joe Biden’s nominees, we could find no public statements from him in which he threatened to switch parties.

If Romney decides to seek a second term as senator in 2024, it seems he’ll do so as a Republican. The senator filed a "statement of candidacy" April 11 with the Federal Election Commission as a member of the Republican Party. The filing allows Romney to begin raising and spending money on a reelection campaign, though he has not officially announced he is running for a second term.

Romney’s party affiliation has not changed on FEC forms since that filing, and he still caucuses with Republicans in the Senate.

Romney’s most recent campaign finance report shows he has stepped up fundraising from the first quarter of 2023, when he had reported raising about $112,000. Romney’s second-quarter report, filed in July, shows the campaign raised more than $1 million from April to June.

Whatever his decision about seeking a second term, there’s no credible evidence that Romney has threatened to switch parties. We rate the claim False.