Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney is expected to formally launch a campaign for president of the United States next week in the key early primary state of New Hampshire, the Union Leader reports.
A spokesman for Romney confirms to CNN that the Republican hopeful will declare his candidacy in the Granite State next week.
Last month, the 2008 presidential candidate formed an exploratory committee to test the waters for making another run for the White House in 2012. He announced that move in New Hampshire. HuffPost's Jon Ward reported at the time:
The location was also carefully chosen. New Hampshire will be the prize for Romney in the first three states' worth of nomination contests, since the Iowa caucuses and South Carolina's primary come before and after the Granite State, respectively. Both of those states have voting populations heavy with socially conservative evangelical Christians -- Romney struggled with those types of voters and those states in 2008, in part because he is a Mormon.
Reuters reports:
White House hopefuls Mitt Romney and Sarah Palin lead a narrower field of potential rivals for the 2012 Republican Party presidential nomination, according to a poll released on Thursday.
The Gallup survey is the organization's first since Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels, former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee and real estate mogul Donald Trump opted out of the slowly evolving primary race.
However, Romney is likely to face obstacles in his pursuit of the White House. HuffPost's Jon Ward reports:
A top goal of the nation's most influential national Tea Party group is to stop Mitt Romney from winning the Republican nomination for president.
Interviews with top officials at FreedomWorks, a Washington-based organizing hub for Tea Party activists around the country, revealed that much of their thinking about the 2012 election revolves around derailing the former Massachusetts governor.
The AP reports:
Romney's full-fledged campaign has been a near certainty for months. He has traveled across the country to meet in private with donors and sound out their support. His headquarters in Boston has been adding staff.
He has learned lessons from the 2008 loss and has severely limited his public appearances. Instead of marathon days of campaigning, he so far has favored smaller events, opinion pieces in newspapers and speeches to friendly audiences.
Romney's public career began in 1999, when the business executive was recruited to take over the 2002 Winter Olympics after scandal and financial deficits threatened the Salt Lake City games.
Now, Romney appears to have his eyes squarely on the Republican presidential nomination. The former governor himself identified the venue for his June 2 announcement on Twitter on Thursday night. "Making it official next week at the Scamman Farm in New Hampshire," he wrote.