Mitt Romney — a former state governor and head of the Salt Lake City winter Olympics — is entering the 2012 U.S. presidential contest to try to oust President Barack Obama.

Romney failed to win the Republican presidential nomination in 2008. But he has been laying the groundwork for months in a renewed bid to win his party's nomination for the White House. Numerous polls show Romney as the slight leader for the Republican nomination against several other contenders, but only with the support of about one of every five party voters in what is considered a wide-open contest.

The candidate is to make his announcement Thursday in the northeastern state of New Hampshire, where a key Republican nominating election will be held early next year. Romney was governor of the adjoining state of Massachusetts, pushing through a comprehensive health care law covering most of the state's residents. That law became the model of the national health care law supported by Mr. Obama and narrowly approved by Congress last year.

Numerous Republicans are opposed to the national law because it requires most people to buy health insurance, the same provision as in the state law. Romney has had to defend his support for the Massachusetts measure. He says he does not support the national insurance mandate.

Romney is credited with turning the scandal-ridden 2002 Salt Lake City Games into a success, and later moved on to become a venture capitalist and founder of a management consulting company.

In advance excerpts of his announcement, Romney focuses on the sluggish U.S. economy and what he says is runaway spending by the national government. He says that Americans elected Mr. Obama without knowing what kind of a president he would be, but now have more than campaign slogans on which to judge him.

In the excerpt, Romney declares that “Barack Obama has failed America.”