Romney feared Newt in 2012, book says

A new book about the 2012 presidential election reveals that Mitt Romney saw former House Speaker Newt Gingrich as a serious threat to securing the Republican nomination.

"I have to tell you that, in the discussions I had with my senior staff," Romney says in the book, "people like Stuart Stevens and Russ Schriefer said, ‘Look, Newt is not going to be the nominee. I don’t care what the polls say, he’s not going to be the nominee.’ I was far less sanguine about that."

For a brief time in the run up to the election, Gingrich was the frontrunner to lock the GOP nomination, thanks to his zesty debate performances.

The book, Collision 2012: Obama vs. Romney and the Future of Elections in America, by Dan Balz, publishes Aug. 6.

@eScarry