Former President George H.W. Bush will formally endorse Mitt Romney's bid for the Republican nomination. As the Associated Press' Kasie Hunt was first to report, the two will appear together in Houston on Thursday.

Bush's endorsement isn't a huge surprise—in part because the former president already sort of backed the former Massachusetts governor's 2012 bid. In December, Bush told the Houston Chronicle that Romney was "the best choice" in the race—though he stopped short of a full-fledged endorsement.

And it was no secret who the Bush family was pulling for. Earlier this month, former First Lady Barbara Bush lent her voice to robocalls aimed at turning out the vote for Romney in Ohio. And just last week, the president's son, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, announced he was backing Romney.

The former president's support is just another in a series of high-profile Republican endorsements of the Romney campaign in recent days as the ex-governor moves to cast himself as the inevitable GOP nominee.

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