Mitt Romney Will Consider Trump's SCOTUS Nominee, He Says

Mitt Romney intends to vote for a Supreme Court nominee when President Trump selects one, the Utah senator and former Massachusetts governor said Tuesday morning.

Romney said in a statement posted to Twitter that his decision "is based on the immutable fairness of following the law, which in this case is the Constitution and precedent."

"If the nominee reaches the Senate floor, I intend to vote based upon their qualification," he said.

Trump said he plans to name a nominee later this week to replace Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg on the U.S. Supreme Court.

And Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said Monday that the Senate will vote on confirmation before the end of the year. The move has outraged Democrats, and focused attention on a handful of senators who could derail the nomination.

Presumed to be among them was Romney, who has been a frequent critic of President Trump, and was the only Republican who voted to convict during the impeachment trial.

Before Romney's announcement, WBUR's Morning Edition spoke to Jason Perry, director of the Hinkley Institute of Politics at the University of Utah, who predicted that Romney would indeed vote on the nominee.

Perry said the decision is "independent of whether or not he's supporting President Trump."

"He's representing the state of Utah and if you look back to 2016 in terms of the issues that Utahns thought were most important — there was the economy and there was the nominee for the United States Supreme Court," Perry said. "For Utahns this was a serious consideration. That's what they wanted in the president. I think that's a big portion of why Utahns voted for President Trump at the time. Their issues of immigration, for example, religious freedom, abortion — There are these big items that Utahns were looking at the Supreme Court for."

Perry added that Romney appeared focused on longterm impact of a potential vote "more than any one particular political filter."