It might seem like ancient history, but a month after the 2022 midterm elections, plenty of Republican officials weren’t altogether pleased with Donald Trump. The former president had just undermined the party’s electoral plans — in part with his antics, and in part by helping candidates with little chance of success — and the idea of having Trump lead the GOP ticket in 2024 wasn’t especially appealing.

For example, Sen. John Thune of South Dakota, the Senate minority whip, said at the time that he hoped that Republicans would have “other options” in 2024.

Soon after, Sen. Mitt Romney was asked whether he could support Trump’s comeback bid. “Absolutely not,” the Utah Republican said, adding that he’d oppose the former president in both the primaries and the general election.

“It’s not just because he loses,” Romney said. “It’s also [that] he’s simply not a person who ought to have the reins of the government of the United States.”

Fourteen months later, the Utahan hasn’t changed his mind — and he’s finding new reasons to oppose Trump’s candidacy. The Hill reported:

Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah), who voted twice to convict former President Trump on impeachment charges, is ruling out voting for Trump in 2024, citing a court’s finding that the former president sexually abused E. Jean Carroll in a Bergdorf Goodman dressing room in the 1990s.

Romney told reporters at the Utah Capitol, “I will not be voting for former President Trump. I must admit that I find sexual assault to be a line I will not cross in the people I select to be my president.”

The senator, who’s retiring at the end of the year, made related comments to The Hill, adding, in reference to the Carroll case, “We have a guy running for president who was found guilty of sexual assault. Call me old fashioned but I kind of draw the line at that.”

In case anyone needs a refresher, it was last year when a jury found Trump liable for sexually abusing Carroll, and jurors awarded the writer $5 million in damages for her battery and defamation claims.

The jury did not find the defendant liable for rape, though a judge later concluded that the former president, for all intents and purposes, “‘raped’ her as many people commonly understand the word ‘rape.’”

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Last month, the matter became even more serious for Trump: A jury concluded that the former president must pay his accuser over $83 million in damages for repeatedly defaming her, including $65 million in punitive damages.

It’s tempting to think Romney’s position would be widely held by people of good conscience. After all, in the United States, no major political party has ever nominated a presidential candidate found to have sexually abused someone.

And yet, Romney is the only GOP member of Congress to rule out the possibility of supporting Trump in response to the outcome of the Carroll civil cases. In fact, Republican Sens. Tim Scott of South Carolina and James Lankford of Oklahoma made Sunday show appearances a few weeks ago, were asked whether the juries’ findings gave them pause, and both senators shrugged with indifference.

As for rank-and-file Republican voters, why aren’t more of them abandoning Trump in the wake of the jury trials? Recent polling suggests less than half of the party’s voters were aware of the fact that the former president was found liable for assaulting Carroll.

Or put another way, many GOP voters aren’t following Romney’s lead because they simply haven’t heard about the developments.