If anyone is wondering why members of the Republican Party tend to tread lightly when it comes to former President Donald Trump, they need only ask Utah Senator Mitt Romney. In February 2021, the GOP Senator revealed a pretty startling prediction about the former president's political future.

Romney's prediction is a serious one indeed, principally because he's not actually a member of Trump's camp. On the contrary, when Romney voted to impeach Donald Trump in February 2020, the senator condemned Trump's actions as a, quote, "appalling abuse of the public trust."

While Romney told The Times on Tuesday that plenty could happen between now and 2024, he added that, if he were to make a call based on the names that are currently being suggested as contenders, Trump would still take it home.

This doesn't mean that Romney himself would be inclined to support the 45th president in a potential re-election bid, however. When he voted to impeach President Trump a second time, the senator offered even more blistering criticism of Trump than a year prior, saying:

"That lie brought our nation to a dark and dangerous place. Invented and disseminated by the President, it poisoned our politics and our public discourse."

It's little surprise, then, that Romney told The Times that he wouldn't throw his weight behind a possible Trump candidacy in 2024.

Current poll numbers support Mitt Romney's hypothesis, even after Trump's historic second impeachment trial. A poll conducted by Morning Consult and Politico found that 54 percent of GOP voters would still support Donald Trump in a presidential primary, even after the deadly January 6th insurrection mounted against the U.S. Capitol. Morning Consult also reports that the number reflected today is similar to that seen in November, before the 2020 presidential election.

The hypothetical poll stacked Trump against his former VP Mike Pence, former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley, his own son Donald Trump Jr., and Senators Mitt Romney and Ted Cruz. Nearly 60 percent of GOP voters think Trump should play a bigger role in the Republican Party. Meanwhile, gambling websites such as SportsBet and SBD also show Trump as a frontrunner in the upcoming 2024 race.

Perhaps in the absence of his father's capability to do so, Donald Trump Jr. had taken to Twitter to attack Romney, suggesting the Republican senator should just become a Democrat once and for all. However, Romney's recent comments seem to have calmed Don Jr. down. On February 24th, after Romney made his 2024 prediction, Trump Jr. tweeted:

"Well look at that [...] Mitt got one right."

But as one Twitter user points out:

"Why is no one mentioning that he (Donald Trump) could be a felon by then several times over? Maybe it's not politically nice to state the obvious, almost like you're wishing for it."

Meanwhile, Donald Trump has turned his attention to the Supreme Court and its decision not to block the release of his controversial tax returns. In his latest statement condemning the court's decision, the ex-president assured the public he hadn't bowed out of the ring yet. He wrote:

"I will fight on, just as I have, for the last five years (even before I was successfully elected), despite all of the election crimes that were committed against me. We will win!"

There are some even more telling signs that suggest Donald Trump may soon attempt a political comeback, too. For example, there's the fact that he reportedly set up camp in front of his TV during his second impeachment trial to suss out his future political enemies.

Trump is also said to be gearing up to give his first public post-presidency speech, in which he'll lay out his vision for the future of the Republican party, and possibly even declare himself the presumptive nominee.

Finally, there are the Mar-A-Lago visits. High-profile Republicans continue to fly down to Florida to meet with the ex-president, as Lindsay Graham did in mid-February 2020, apparently to strategize ahead of the 2022 elections. Graham subsequently told reporters:

"He's very involved in helping the team win."

Graham went on to add that Trump has been making many phone calls in order to, quote, "get the best team on the field" ahead of 2022. For now, though, Trump's real intentions remain little more than hearsay - and the country will have to wait to find out whether Romney's dramatic prediction might come true.

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