Utah Republican Sen. Mike Lee captured a third term Tuesday night after his same-state GOP colleague in the upper chamber de facto backed Lee’s challenger, a Democrat masquerading as an independent.

Mitt Romney, the junior senator from Utah, was the only Republican senator who refused Lee an endorsement against failed 2016 third-party presidential candidate Evan McMullin. In April, Romney told Politico his refusal to endorse in the contest was due to having “two friends” in the race.

“I don’t get involved in primaries and I don’t endorse,” Romney said, despite attending a fundraiser for Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney days later. Cheney went on to lose her August primary by more than 36 points to Wyoming attorney Harriet Hageman. And had many Democrat voters not changed their party registration to support Cheney in the GOP contest, her losing margins would have been far wider.