News roundup: Romney's team shocked by defeat

Romney shellshocked by loss. The Utah Senate has a new president. Obama may tap Huntsman again.

Happy Friday. Mitt Romney and his campaign team really truly thought they were headed for victory . They believed the polls showed an unrealistic turnout for President Barack Obama and expected to steamroll through states like Florida and Virginia. One adviser said: "I don't think there was one person who saw this coming." [CBSNews]

Topping the news: There's more than 20,000 mail-in and provisional ballots still to be counted in Utah's 4th District and some are holding out hope that Mia Love comes back to beat Rep. Jim Matheson, though a breakdown of those ballots shows how difficult that would be. [Trib]

-> President Barack Obama is considering Jon Huntsman to replace Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, aides say. [APviaTrib] [DNews]

-> The Utah Legislature elected their leaders. Becky Lockhart will remain the House Speaker, while Wayne Niederhauser becomes Senate President. [Trib] [UtahPolicy] [DNews]

Tweets of the day: From @daveweigel: "Why the hell did Rocky Anderson run for president? He's currently getting fewer votes than Roseanne Barr."

From @freddoso: "White evangelicals made up 26% of 2012 electorate. Up from 23% in 2004. Gave Mitt same margin as Bush. No Mormon problem."

From @mckaycoppins: "McCain only won by 18 points. RT @thefix: Mitt Romney won Utah by 48 points on Tuesday. Holy bazoli."

From @BuzzFeedAndrew: "GAAAFE — oh forget it. RT @mollyesque: Plouffe: 'As the president said...you're not going to be able to change Washington from the inside.'"

Happy birthday: To state Rep. Dean Sanpei and Democrat Charles Henderson.

All 29: Sen. Mike Lee visited Sanpete County on Thursday, holding some meetings with business leaders. He has now hit all 29 Utah counties this year, an annual goal for the young senator. Our guess is the first one he visits in 2013 will be Utah County, you know, because that's where his wife and kids are.

In other news: Members of the Utah Legislature reconsider the 2011 guest worker law, in favor of stricter immigration policies. [Trib]

-> Chris Stewart, congressman-elect for Utah's 2nd District, receives a congressional crash course alongside 83 other newly-elected House members next week. [Trib]

-> Salt Lake County Mayor Peter Corroon proposed a 17.5 percent property tax hike in hopes that it would lead to restored employee salary cuts from 2008 and 2009, in one of his last actions as mayor. [Trib] [Fox13] [DNews]

-> The Utah Hospital Association doesn't want Gov. Gary Herbert to accept an expansion of Medicaid under Obamacare. [Trib]

-> Bob Murray's mining company laid off 102 Utah miners, attributing it to Obama's "war on coal." [DNews]

-> Herbert picks David Gladwell to run the Utah Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control. [Trib]

-> Utah Democratic Chairman Jim Dabakis and former Salt Lake County Councilwoman Jenny Wilson have confirmed they are going to run for the state Senate seat being vacated by Ben McAdams, who was recently elected as the county mayor. And others are considering jumping in as well. [ABC4]

-> Pat Bagley offers his take on Republican fear. [Trib]

-> Ann Cannon says now that the election is over, it's time for people to calm down and put the nation first. [Trib]

-> Paul Rolly reports on how one Utah business owner gets around the state's frustrating driver's license ID laws. [Trib]

-> Bernick and Schott talk about how they predicted Matheson's loss and how they got it wrong. [UtahPolicy]

-> The Libertarian candidate may have swung the race between Matheson and Love? Jim Vein received 5,703 votes and Love lost at this stage by 2,818. [DNews]

Election aftermath: Former Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson finished in sixth place in the presidential election, far behind Libertarian Gary Johnson, who had his campaign HQ in Salt Lake City — and even behind Roseanne Barr. [HuffPost]

-> Columnist: Obama should make calls to three Republican senators, including Sen. Orrin Hatch, to help move past partisan gridlock. [FoxNews]

-> Which foreign heads of state did Obama call to accept congratulations? [WaPost]

-> One Mitt Romney donor feels that New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie attributed to the loss by "four or five points." [WaPost]

-> Oops! A Romney campaign staffer prematurely published the Romney victory website. [Gizmodo] [Mashable]

-> Huntsman tweeted that the Republican Party will have a future as long as "it remembers to put country first." [TheHill]

-> Life after defeat: The Washington Post investigates the Romney campaign's internal struggles, regrets and mistakes. [WaPost]

-> When speaking about the need for the GOP to make Latinos feel more accepted, Rep.-elect Joaquin Castro said that prominent "Latino Republicans will be able to have a real effect on their party and start to moderate them." [Politico]

-> Advocates of immigration reform were encouraged by the unprecedented turnout of Latino voters on Nov. 6. [WaPost]

-> Obama won 4 percent less of the white vote than he did in 2008, but it obviously wasn't enough to dramatically alter the outcome. [WaPost] He won 73 percent of the Asian American vote. [NatJournal]

Where are they?

Utah Governor Gary Herbert is in St. George, where he takes part in an Republican Governors Association conference call before heading to his planning retreat.

SL Co. Mayor Peter Corroon attends a Board of Tourism meeting before officiating the wedding of Anna Donnell and Edwin Firmage.

SLC Mayor Ralph Becker visits the Guadalupe School.

WVC Mayor Mike Winder cuts the ribbon at Fire and Security Solutions.

President Barack Obama meets with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

Got a tip? A birthday, wedding or anniversary to announce? Email us at cornflakes@sltrib.com. If you haven't already, sign up for our weekday email and get this sent directly to your inbox. [Trib]

— Matt Canham and Betsy Blanchard Twitter.com/mattcanham and Twitter.com/betsyblanchard