As UtahPolicy.com previously reported, former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman is seriously considering a run for U.S. Senate from Utah in 2018.
Huntsman told the Bloomberg “Benchmark” podcast a 2018 run is definitely on the table, depending on what Sen. Orrin Hatch does.
“We’re going to take a good look at maybe a future Senate run in the state of Utah,” said Huntsman, who was elected twice as governor, was President Barack Obama’s U.S. ambassador to China and made an unsuccessful run for the Republican presidential nomination in 2012.
Huntsman said his decision “in part would be based on what Senator Hatch chooses to do,” and poked at the chamber’s senior Republican for his four decades in office. Hatch is chairman of the Finance Committee and previously was head of the Judiciary Committee.
“He’s been a productive senator for nearly half a century,” Huntsman told the podcast on Monday. “I’m somebody personally who believes in term limits. I always have. You get in, do your job, you get out.”
Hatch has been making noise about running for a seventh term in 2018 after previously vowing this current term would be his last.
Rumors were swirling that Huntsman might run as an independent candidate, but he reiterated to the podcast hosts he would run as a Republican if he decides to seek office.
Huntsman would bring a couple of important items to the table if he decides to run. He has the personal wealth to make an expensive Senate run a possibility. Additionally, his brother owns the Salt Lake Tribune, and it’s nice to have the state’s largest newspaper in the family.
