Senator Mitt Romney is BOOED by delegates at the Utah GOP convention for voting to impeach Trump

More than two thousand Utah Republicans booed Senator Mitt Romney as he arrived to speak at a convention in his home state on Saturday.

The vocal backlash came after as a motion was put forward but ultimately rejected for him to be censurd for his votes at President Donald Trump´s impeachment trials.

‘Aren’t you embarrassed?’ said Romney in response to the catcalling as he walked onto the stage. 

‘I’m a man who says what he means, and you know I was not a fan of our last president’s character issues,’ he said.

Shouts of ‘traitor’ or ‘communist’ could be heard from the crowd. 

‘You can boo all you like,’ Romney continued. ‘I’ve been a Republican all of my life. My dad was the governor of Michigan and I was the Republican nominee for president in 2012.’

Romney managed to elicit a few cheers when he asked the crowd if they were fans of Biden.

‘So, what do you think about President Biden’s first 100 days?’ Romney asked. 

The motion for Romney to be censured narrowly failed, 798 to 711, in a vote by delegates to the state GOP convention.

At one stage, the Chairman of the Utah GOP, Derek Brown, interrupted Romney’s speech to tell the rowdy crowd to simmer down.   

Despite the negativity, Romney ended his speech on a positive note. 

‘We need to come together in strength and unity,’ he said.

Davis County delegate Don Guymon, who authored the resolution, said Romney’s votes to remove Trump from office ‘hurt the Constitution and hurt the party.’

‘This was a process driven by Democrats who hated Trump,’ Guymon said. ‘Romney’s vote in the first impeachment emboldened Democrats who continued to harass Trump.’

The proposal, among several platform changes debated Saturday, also sought to praise the other members of Utah’s congressional delegation for their support of the former president.

Others warned supporting the censure risked defining the party around Trump instead of the conservative principles most delegates treasure.

‘If the point of all this is to let Mitt Romney know we’re displeased with him, trust me, he knows,’ said Salt Lake County delegate Emily de Azavedo Brown. ‘Let´s not turn this into a Trump or no Trump thing. Are we a party of principle or a party of a person?’

Romney was one of seven GOP senators who voted to convict Trump for inciting the deadly riots at the U.S. Capitol on January 6.

The Senate ultimately voted 57-43 to acquit the former president, failing to meet the 67-vote threshold to convict.

Romney is not facing re-election in 2022.