Mitt Romney - 1994 U.S. Senatorial Campaign

1994 U.S. Senatorial Campaign

For much of his business career, Romney did not take public, political stances. He had kept abreast of national politics since college, though, and the circumstances of his father's presidential campaign loss had irked him for decades. He registered as an Independent and voted in the 1992 presidential primaries for the Democratic former senator from Massachusetts, Paul Tsongas.

By 1993, Romney had begun thinking about entering politics, partly based upon Ann's urging and partly to follow in his father's footsteps. He decided to challenge incumbent Democratic U.S. Senator Ted Kennedy, who was seeking re-election for the sixth time. Political pundits viewed Kennedy as vulnerable that year – in part because of the unpopularity of the Democratic Congress as a whole, and in part because this was Kennedy's first election since the William Kennedy Smith trial in Florida, in which the senator had suffered some negative public relations regarding his character. Romney changed his affiliation to Republican in October 1993 and formally announced his candidacy in February 1994. In addition to his leave from Bain Capital, he stepped down from his church leadership role in 1994.

Radio personality Janet Jeghelian took an early lead in polls among candidates for the Republican nomination for the Senate seat, but Romney proved the most effective fundraiser. He won 68 percent of the vote at the May 1994 Massachusetts Republican Party convention; businessman John Lakian finished a distant second, eliminating Jeghelian. Romney defeated Lakian in the September 1994 primary with more than 80 percent of the vote.

In the general election, Kennedy faced the first serious re-election challenger of his career. The younger, telegenic, and well-funded Romney ran as a businessman who stated he had created ten thousand jobs and as a Washington outsider with a solid family image and moderate stances on social issues. When Kennedy tried to tie Romney's policies to those of Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush, Romney responded, "Look, I was an independent during the time of Reagan-Bush. I'm not trying to take us back to Reagan-Bush." Romney stated, "Ultimately, this is a campaign about change."

Romney's campaign was effective in portraying Kennedy as soft on crime, but had trouble establishing its own consistent positions. By mid-September 1994, polls showed the race to be approximately even. Kennedy responded with a series of ads that focused on Romney's seemingly shifting political views on issues such as abortion; Romney would respond on the latter by stating, "I believe that abortion should be safe and legal in this country." Other Kennedy ads centered on layoffs of workers at the Ampad plant owned by Romney's Bain Capital. The latter was effective in blunting Romney's momentum. Kennedy and Romney held a widely watched late-October debate that had no clear winner, but by then, Kennedy had pulled ahead in polls and stayed ahead afterward. Romney spent $3 million of his own money in the race and more than $7 million overall. In the November general election, despite a disastrous showing for Democrats nationwide, Kennedy won the election with 58 percent of the vote to Romney's 41 percent, the smallest margin in any of Kennedy's re-election campaigns for the Senate.

The day after the election, Romney returned to Bain Capital, but the loss had a lasting effect; he told his brother, "I never want to run for something again unless I can win." When his father died in 1995, Mitt donated his inheritance to BYU's George W. Romney Institute of Public Management. He also joined the board, as vice-chair, of the Points of Light Foundation, which had incorporated his father's National Volunteer Center. Romney felt restless as the decade neared a close; the goal of simply making more money was becoming inadequate for him. Although no longer in a local leadership position in his church, he still taught Sunday School. During the long and controversial approval and construction process for the $30 million Mormon temple in Belmont, he feared that, as a political figure who had opposed Kennedy, he would become a focal point for opposition to the structure. He thus kept to a limited, behind-the-scenes role in attempts to ease tensions between the church and local residents.