Michigan's next U.S. senator may still be from the Birmingham-Bloomfield area, but it won't be Scott Romney, a Bloomfield Hills resident and brother to 2012 Republican presidential nomineee, Mitt Romney.
According to the Michigan Information & Research Service, Romney said on Tuesday he won't be running for Carl Levin's seat in the U.S. Senate. Levin announced last week that after a 35-year career, he won't be running again in 2014.
According to a report in the Huffington Post, Romney said it was a "tough decision," but that 2014 just wasn't the right time to run for the 71-year-old, a corporate attorney at the Detroit office of Honigman Miller Schwartz and Cohn.
However, Romney was a likely forerunner for Levin's seat as early as Monday, when Murray Communications released a poll of likely Republican nominees.
In that poll, which looked at 1,170 likely Republican primary voters, Romney came in second place behind U.S. Rep. Mike Rogers, with 29.7 percent of the vote.
"The Romney name clearly still resonates with Michigan's Republican primary voters," said Patrick Murray, of Murray Communications, in a recent press release.
Also reporting that Romney wouldn't be running, however, was www.rollcall.com, which said a state GOP source spoke with Romney on Tuesday and confirmed his decision not to run.
Would you vote for a Romney to replace Carl Levin in the U.S. Senate?
