‘He is not Mitt Romney and he is not Donald Trump’: Romney’s Senate successor makes an early mark

It took Rep. John Curtis, R-Utah, just a few weeks to make his mark on the Senate — even before he’d actually take the oath of office to replace retiring Sen. Mitt Romney next year. 

As Senate colleagues and those close to President-elect Donald Trump saw it, Curtis, a senator-elect, was among the group of at least five Republicans who were planning to vote against former Rep. Matt Gaetz’s nomination to lead the Justice Department. 

The opposition was enough to sink Gaetz, who withdrew from contention Thursday afternoon — an episode demonstrating to Trump and his allies that red lines still remain in a Republican Party that’s largely bent to his will. It also highlighted Curtis’ role to play in coloring in those lines, as an early indicator of how the Utahn is approaching his new office and a glimpse at the kind of influence he could wield once there. 

Those who know Curtis caution not to look at his role in Gaetz’s withdrawal too simplistically, through the “pro-Trump” or “anti-Trump” litmus test that’s defined much of Republican politics over the last eight years. Instead, they point to the test Curtis laid out himself during a June primary debate: “When President Trump is doing anything that I consider aligned with Utah values … I’m wind at his back. But I’m not going to give him an unconditional yes to anything that he wants.” 

“He is not Mitt Romney and he is not Donald Trump. He’s got his own brand and he was very clear about that in his primary and his general election,” said former GOP Rep. Carlos Curbelo of Florida, an NBC News contributor who overlapped with Curtis in the House. Romney, notably, was the lone Republican who voted to convict Trump at his first Senate impeachment trial in 2020, and he was a vocal critic of Trump on numerous other occasions during the last eight years, six of which Romney spent in the Senate. 

“With this Gaetz episode, you will see him stand up for what he thinks is right,” Curbelo said. “And other times he’s going to be another reliable Republican vote in the Senate.”

Born in Salt Lake City, the 64-year-old Curtis met his wife in high school, graduated from Brigham Young University and served his Mormon mission in Taiwan. He and his wife have six children and 17 grandchildren, with number 18 on the way. After more than a decade of corporate work, Curtis became the chief operating officer of Action Target, a company that manufactures shooting ranges and targets. He briefly served in local Democratic Party leadership and was elected to two terms as mayor of Provo, where he began his now-famous collection of hundreds of pairs of “fun” socks that serve as conversation starters and icebreakers with his constituents. 

Curtis joined Congress in 2017 in a special election to replace former Rep. Jason Chaffetz, who had earned a reputation as a partisan warrior as the head of the House Oversight Committee that investigated former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton ahead of and during her 2016 presidential bid. As the popular mayor of the largest city in the congressional district, Curtis emerged victorious in a crowded Republican primary field after repelling attacks from his right flank, in part criticizing his decision not to vote for Trump in the 2016 election. 

In his victory speech that year, Curtis argued that Congress needed “bridge builders, not bomb throwers,” adding that “if you’re not white, Mormon or male, I am still here for you.” His allies say that’s the kind of message he took to Washington with him as a congressman. 

Former Utah Republican Gov. Gary Herbert told NBC News that his relationship with the senator-elect goes back to Herbert’s days on the Utah County Commission, when Curtis chaired the local Democratic Party. Herbert called Curtis a “good, decent person” who is easy to like. And he said he decided to endorse Curtis’ congressional bid because he believed him to be the “right kind of person” to come to Washington.

Curtis was “a person who was really wanting to get things done, not just to be on cable news and get headlines that way, throwing out red meat to the faithful, but actually trying to work with all people, including the other side of the aisle, to get things done,” Herbert said. 

“And as a congressman, he proved that to be his modus operandi, and he was very capable,” Herbert added, pointing to Curtis’ legislative record. 

Curtis himself has leaned on that legislative record, touting success on bills he got enacted on issues like energy, conservation and protecting Taiwan. As he ran for Senate, he’s touted outside analysis referring to him as one of the more effective members of Congress. 

Curbelo pointed to Curtis’ decision to launch a Republican-only climate caucus as an example of how the Utahn was able to get dozens of conservative lawmakers to the table on an issue not always associated with the GOP.

“When John decided how he was going to get involved on the issue, he said, ‘No, let’s have a caucus that’s only for Republicans, because Republicans need to learn more about this issue and grow on the issue before they can even think about engaging Democrats,’” Curbelo said. “That was a very realistic and mature way of thinking about the issue, and it’s been a success.” 

His allies note conservative positions on issues like immigration and debt. But like most Republicans in the Trump era, the former and future president has been one of the issues looming largest during his career in Washington.

Curtis has praised Trump on issues like tax reform, “deregulation” and his Supreme Court nominations, and he voted against both of the House’s impeachment attempts. But he didn’t join the majority of his GOP House colleagues in their support for a Texas lawsuit to overturn the 2020 election, he voted to establish a bipartisan committee to investigate the 2021 attack on the Capitol and he supported censuring Trump after the Capitol riot. 

It’s opened Curtis up to scrutiny, again, from the more conservative wing of his party. After deciding to run for Senate after Romney’s retirement announcement, Trump weighed in and endorsed Riverton Mayor Trent Staggs. 

Framing himself as a “proven conservative” with help from well-funded outside groups, Curtis won the Republican Senate primary decisively, earning just shy of 50% support in a crowded primary that also included the former state House speaker and a wealthy businessman. 

His Senate campaign victory speech harkened back to the one he delivered after winning his first House election, including an emphasis on representing “every Utahn,” and a promise not to be “throwing gas on the social media fire or giving click bait to the cable news.” Instead, Curtis said, he’d be “riding my Ford up and down, back and forth across this state, doing the hard work of legislating and getting things done.” 

“If you’re not sure where to find me, don’t look by the cameras or the microphones. I’ll be on the Senate floor with my colleagues from both parties,” he added, trying to “solve our difficult problems.”

That’s where Curtis found himself as Gaetz began meeting with Republican senators. Curtis didn’t take to social media or run to the microphones to make clear where he stood. But his colleagues and Trump allies felt that they understood his perspective, with Curtis’ likely disapproval of Gaetz leading to his quick withdrawal. 

Herbert, the former governor, said he exchanged text messages with Curtis in which the senator-elect acknowledged the “challenge” ahead of him with some of Trump’s nominees, and the “important role that the Senate plays under the Constitution of advise and consent.”

“Of course, Rep. Gaetz came up in the conversation too as somebody who appears to be — we need to have close scrutiny whether he fits the mold of what we want to have as a leader in the [attorney general’s] office,” Herbert said. “I think I knew at the time of our discussion how he’d come down.” 

Herbert said the situation is emblematic of the kind of lawmaker Curtis is: supporting Trump when he believes the president-elect is right but willing to disagree, when needed, with “mutual respect and dignity and grace.”

“He’s not going to call people names, and he recognizes that his own constituency here in Utah, that’s what they want and expect out of their elected officials,” Herbert said. “Not only has he been popular, he’s going to continue to be popular as a senator, because the people of Utah want somebody with moral values, moral fiber, integrity and respect for opposition, [who tries] to find ways to get things done as opposed to a way to blow things up.”

“He recognizes the legacy of what’s gone before him, but he will create the John Curtis legacy for those who come after him,” Herbert continued. “And that’s yet to be written, but I expect it will be a very positive story.”