Mitt Romney says he won't run for president in 2028, and thinks anyone near his age shouldn't be running much of anything. The former Utah senator and two-time presidential candidate, now 79, told Deseret News in a recent podcast interview that octogenarians have no business leading the nation, citing research on age-related cognitive decline to make his case.
It is a familiar refrain from Romney, who leaned on the same reasoning when he announced in 2023 that he would not seek reelection to the Senate. But the comments land differently now, with the 2028 Republican primary field beginning to take shape and President Donald Trump, who turned 80 last month, constitutionally barred from seeking a third term.
Romney's remarks, reported by USA TODAY, amount to a final closing of the door on a political career that spanned two decades of presidential ambition, a governorship in Massachusetts, and a single Senate term from Utah that ended in January 2025.
The former senator did not pretend the desire had faded. He laughed when the subject came up, then offered a line that was equal parts wistful and self-aware:
"The reality is, sure, I would love to do it again. And this time I might get it right."
Romney first campaigned for the Republican presidential nomination in 2008. He won the nomination four years later but lost the general election to Barack Obama in 2012. That defeat effectively ended his presidential ambitions for a generation, until his election to the Senate in 2018 reopened the question of whether he might try again.
He chose not to. And in his Deseret News interview, Romney made clear the reasoning is rooted less in political calculation than in biology.
Romney pointed to research he attributed to Bill Bryson's book "The Body," claiming the human brain shrinks by 20 percent by the time a person reaches 80. That figure, which USA TODAY did not independently verify, formed the backbone of his argument against elderly leadership.
"So I basically think people who are 80 and above really should not be running the world or running the country."
It is a blunt statement, and Romney has been consistent about it. When he announced his Senate retirement in 2023, he released a video making a generational case for stepping aside. In that announcement, he said:
"Frankly, it's time for a new generation of leaders. They are the ones who need to make the decisions that will shape the world they will be living in."
Romney noted at the time that if he had sought reelection and won, he would have remained in office until at least his mid-80s. He chose to leave instead.
Romney's views on age and leadership carry a certain irony. He was among the Republican Party's most vocal critics of President Trump during his time in Congress, and now Trump, who just turned 80, is constitutionally prevented from running again in 2028. The two-term limit, not age limits, settles that question.
But the broader 2028 field is already forming. Vice President JD Vance holds the inside lane for the Republican nomination, though the primary is far from settled. Vance has been making his case publicly, including in unexpected venues.
He recently appeared on Bill Maher's show, where the liberal host conceded that his 2028 vote was up for grabs, a sign of how much the political landscape has shifted since Romney's last campaign.
On the Democratic side, the field looks equally unsettled. Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer has already ruled out a 2028 presidential bid, leaving Democrats without an obvious Midwest standard-bearer.
And Romney is not the only political figure citing age as the reason to stay home. Senator Bernie Sanders has all but ruled out a 2028 run for the same reason, narrowing the Democratic bench further.
Very little, in practical terms. Romney has not been a serious contender for the Republican nomination since 2012. His single Senate term was defined more by his public breaks with his own party than by any legislative legacy that would have powered a presidential campaign. He was, in the end, a man without a faction, too critical of Trump for the party's base, too Republican for the Democrats who occasionally cheered his dissent.
His retirement in 2025 passed without much fanfare. His announcement that he won't run in 2028 is less a political event than a personal footnote.
Still, his comments about age and cognitive fitness touch a nerve that extends beyond any single candidacy. The debate over elderly leadership consumed American politics during the 2024 cycle and has not gone away. Romney's willingness to apply the standard to himself, stepping aside at 76 rather than running for reelection, gives his argument a consistency that many of his contemporaries in both parties have lacked.
Whether voters in 2028 will care about brain-shrinkage statistics from a Bill Bryson book is another question entirely. The electorate tends to reward energy, vision, and fight, not actuarial tables.
Romney chose to leave the arena on his own terms. The arena barely noticed.
