Those who know him say Romney will be a strong voice on foreign policy and national security affairs

After a couple of high profile false starts and a journey of many years and miles, Mitt Romney is on the brink of making it to Washington.

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The former Massachusetts governor was vanquished by Barack Obama in the 2012 presidential election, then apparently snubbed by Donald Trump over a plate of scallops after 2016.

Now, at 71, he is moving serenely towards a seat in the Senate in what appears to be one of the most one-sided races of the midterms.

Polls have Romney consistently more than 30 points ahead in his Utah senate race against Democrat Jenny Wilson, making it close to a certainty that he will begin a six-year term on Capitol Hill.

The question is: what will he be like? Will the trenchant critic of Trump in 2016 become a thorn in the side of the president? Or is he just too much of a conformist to lead a Republican counter-revolution?

Those who hope Romney might step into the shoes of the late John McCain as Trump critic-in-chief are likely to feel short-changed. Or as Boyd Matheson, a Republican strategist and former congressional chief of staff, put it: “Anyone who is hoping to see a cage fight with Trump is going to be disappointed.”

Matheson, formerly chief of staff to Utah senator Mike Lee and now the opinion editor for the Utah-based Deseret News, has seen the Romney campaign up close. It seems the war of words of 2016 has passed. In March that year, Romney staged what appeared to be an intervention in the presidential race, with a scorching denunciation of Trump.

He predicted Trump would take America into recession, instigate a trade war, balloon the deficit and make the world less safe. He mocked his business record, detailing a trail of disasters from Trump Steaks to Trump University. He cautioned that Trump was “very, very not smart” on foreign policy.

Romney also shredded Trump’s character, calling him a conman, a fake and a phony. “He’s playing the members of the American public for suckers,” Romney said, urging Republicans to vote for anyone who could beat Trump in the primaries. “He gets a free ride to the White House and all we get is a lousy hat.”

Like all of the other attempts to derail Trump, before and since the election, it failed. Trump called Romney “stiff” and mocked him as a loser who blew it against Obama.

Yet for a moment, after the election, it seemed Trump might make Romney America’s top diplomat.

When he met Trump and soon-to-be White House chief of staff Reince Priebus for a fine dinner in November 2016, some observers interpreted events as a deliberate act of revenge by Trump. Seemingly, Romney had been lured with the possibility of being made secretary of state, only for the role to be snatched away almost as soon as the meal at Jean Georges was over.

However, not everyone read that strange dinner for three as an exercise in humiliation.

Kevin Madden, a political commentator who was Romney’s campaign spokesman in 2012, said: “It was a meeting of minds. I think Trump was genuinely interested, and definitely think there were folks close to the president who thought it was a horrible idea and effectively persuaded him.

“If it wasn’t genuine they wouldn’t have reacted. The pushback was very real – Steve Bannon, Kellyanne Conway, Newt Gingrich, Mike Huckabee were all very vocal. [Mike] Pence thought it was a good idea. Ultimately, the critics won.”

So if there are no apparent scores to settle – and Trump was certainly quick to endorse Romney’s Senate run – how will Romney behave towards the White House?

Matheson said that at a recent event in Utah, Romney said: “I’m not going to be doing line-by-line daily edits on the president’s tweets.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Donald Trump and Mitt Romney dine at Jean Georges restaurant in New York City, in November 2016. Photograph: Drew Angerer/Getty Images

The New York Times reported that friends have cited his Mormon faith and emphasis on service. One Republican observer said they sensed Romney just wanted to be a “national voice”.

Madden said: “On issues of foreign policy and national security, he has a very well developed passion and knowledge.

“So he will look to play a leadership role on some of the most important challenges of those two fields – those are areas where the president has in many times strayed away from the policy principles that Romney thinks have made America strong.

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“On trade, for example, her feels very strongly the president has digressed very strongly from his positions, and he believes tariffs are the wrong approach. Obviously the approach that the president has as it relates to Putin and Russia, he will have disagreements with the current administration.”

Romney was mocked by Obama during the 2012 presidential debate on foreign policy, when he said Russia was the biggest foreign policy threat facing the US. The president told him: “The 1980s are now calling to ask for their foreign policy back.”

However, Romney’s views now seem prescient, in the age of concerted meddling with US democracy. Matheson and Madden both said they expect Romney to seek positions on the Senate foreign relations and national security committees.

“He is going to try to affect policy, change the direction of the country,” Madden said. But he added: “If people are looking for a revolutionary who is going to wage a battle for the heart and soul of the Republican party – it’s not going to happen.”