Senator Bob Bennett (R-UT) is up with a 2010 ad featuring former presidential candidate Mitt Romney (R):
He will face a primary challenge from Utah’s Attorney General, as The Hill reports.
Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff (R) is scheduled to make an announcement Wednesday, and some errant Twitter messages from last week make it clear that he will enter the primary against Bennett.
Bennett’s ads are a gambit to discourage Shurtleff from taking the plunge.
Featuring Romney, the most prominent Mormon politician in the country and the CEO of the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, sends a strong signal in heavily Mormon Utah. In the 2008 presidential contest, Romney was virtually unopposed in the state and wound up taking 90 percent of the vote in its Feb. 5 primary.
Bennett has polled far ahead of Shurtleff in a head-to-head matchup, but Utah holds nominating conventions where party activists can bypass the primary process if 60 percent select one candidate.
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