2 years ago

Yesterday, Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT) announced his retirement after seven terms in office. He is the longest-serving Republican senator in U.S. history. The move immediately sparked speculation about who would replace him. Most commentators are eyeing former 2012 Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney as a likely bidder for his seat.

The former Massachusetts governor fanned the intrigue by publicly thanking Hatch for his service and changing his Twitter hometown from Massachusetts to Holladay, UT, within hours of the retirement announcement. According to reports, most Utah Republicans are treating a potential Romney run as “virtually 100% certainty.”

PredictIt traders expressed a similar sentiment when the market for a potential Romney Senate run shot up 22 points yesterday and closed at 95 percent. This market confidence isn’t new though. The odds of him running have been hovering between 70-80 percent since October 22. Romney is also the predictive leader, at 86 percent, of the Utah Senate Republican primary market, despite not having announced a bid. He has until March to file official candidate paperwork.

Here’s the 90-day view of the “Will Romney Run?“ market: