WASHINGTON — Minnesota U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann will endorse Mitt Romney at a campaign stop in southern Virginia on Thursday, a Romney official confirmed Wednesday night.
Bachmann has been flirting with a Romney endorsement for a while now, telling CNN last week that the endorsement would come “all in good time.” As a founding member of the Tea Party caucus on Capitol Hill, Bachmann is positioned to give Romney a boost with the most conservative wing of the Republican Party, the voters he struggled the most to court during his nomination campaign.
Bachmann, of course, is a former presidential rival of Romney. She dropped out of the race the day after her sixth place finish in the Iowa caucuses. She hasn’t endorsed a candidate until now, just as Romney has the party nomination all but sealed up.
The endorsement will come at an event in Portsmouth, Va., just outside of Norfolk, at an afternoon rally. Virginia is one of a handful of battleground states in this November’s election. A Public Policy Polling survey of Virginia voters shows President Obama leading Romney 51-43.
Devin Henry can be reached at dhenry@minnpost.com. Follow him on Twitter: @dhenry