In the exploratory phase of his campaign in May 2011, Romney was preparing one morning to deliver a speech in Michigan to defend the health-care plan he signed into law as governor of Massachusetts and to attack President Obama’s health-care law. The Wall Street Journal released a scathing op-ed that day criticizing Romney for his Massachusetts plan.

Romney’s eldest son received a message from his father early that day, he told Balz. “ ‘I’m going to tell them I’m out,’ ” Tagg Romney recalled his father saying. “He said there’s no path to win the nomination.”

Romney confirmed after the election that he called his son one morning to tell him he thought he wasn’t going to run. “I recognized that by virtue of the realities of my circumstances, there were some drawbacks to my candidacy for a lot of Republican voters,” he told Balz. “One, because I had a health-care plan in Massachusetts that had been copied in some respects by the president, that I would be tainted by that feature. I also realized that being a person of wealth, I would be pilloried by the president as someone who, if you use the term of the day, was in the ‘1 percent.’ ”

Romney’s exchange with his son wasn’t the first time he expressed doubts about running. During a Christmas holiday trip to Hawaii in 2010, the Romney family held a vote. Should Romney, who lost the 2008 presidential primary, run again? Ten of 12 family members voted no — including the candidate. Only Tagg and Ann Romney, Romney’s wife, voted yes.