Sen. Tim Scott makes it official: He’s a candidate for president
COLUMBIA, S.C. >> Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina made it official Friday: He’s running for president.
Scott, the Senate’s only Black Republican, filed paperwork with the Federal Election Commission declaring his intention to seek his party’s nomination in 2024. His candidacy will test whether a more optimistic vision of America’s future can resonate with GOP voters who have elevated partisan brawlers in recent years.
The deeply religious 57-year-old former insurance broker has made his grandfather’s work in the cotton fields of the Deep South a bedrock of his political identity. Yet he rejects the notion that racism remains a powerful force in society, and he has cast his candidacy and rise from generational poverty as the realization of a dream only possible in America.
Scott, who last month formed an exploratory committee allowing him to raise and spend money while weighing a White House campaign, has scheduled a formal announcement on Monday at Charleston Southern University, a private Baptist college and Scott’s alma mater, in his hometown of North Charleston.
Scott already has scheduled TV ads to begin airing in the early voting states Iowa and New Hampshire early next week, the most significant advertising expenditure by a potential or declared candidate in the early stages of the 2024 nominating campaign.
Scott tries to focus on hopeful themes and avoid divisive language to distinguish himself from the grievance-based politics favored by those leading the GOP field, such as former President Donald Trump and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who hasn’t yet entered the race but is expected to do so soon.
The senator refuses to frame his own life story around the country’s racial inequities. He insists that those who disagree with his views on the issue are trying to “weaponize race to divide us,” and that “the truth of my life disproves their lies.”
During a February visit to Iowa, which holds the first GOP presidential caucuses, Scott spoke of a “new American sunrise” rooted in collaboration.
“I see a future where common sense has rebuilt common ground, where we’ve created real unity, not by compromising away our conservatism, but by winning converts to our conservatism,” he said.
But Scott has his limits. During that same trip, he railed against political correctness in much the same fashion as Trump and DeSantis.
“If you wanted a blueprint to ruin America, you’d keep doing exactly what Joe Biden has let the far left do to our country for the past two years,” he said. “Tell every white kid they’re oppressors. Tell Black and brown kids their destiny is grievance, not greatness.”
Scott speaks often about his hardscrabble roots. He was raised by a single mother who worked long hours as a nurse’s assistant to provide for him and his brother after her divorce from their father. Scott, who describes himself as a lackluster student, graduated from Charleston Southern University with a political science degree before opening an insurance business.
Scott’s faith is an integral part of his political and personal story. Describing himself as a “bornagain believer,” Scott often quotes Scripture at campaign events, weaving his reliance on spiritual guidance into his stump speech and using “Faith in America” to describe his series of political appearances before joining the race.
On many issues, Scott aligns with mainstream GOP positions. He wants to reduce government spending and restrict abortion, saying he would sign a federal law to prohibit abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy if elected president.
But Scott has pushed the party on some policing overhaul measures since the killing of George Floyd, and he has occasionally criticized Trump’s response to racial tensions. Scott called it “indefensible” after Trump retweeted a post — that he later deleted — containing a racist slogan associated with white supremacists.
In the days that followed Trump’s widely criticized response to a 2017 white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, Scott said Trump’s principles had been compromised and that without some introspection, “it will be hard for him to regain ... moral authority.”
Throughout their disagreements, though, Scott has maintained a generally cordial relationship with Trump, saying in his book that the former president “listened intently” to his viewpoints on race-related issues.
A potentially more awkward rival for Scott will be Nikki Haley, Trump’s former U.N. ambassador who helped fuel Scott’s political rise when she was South Carolina’s governor and appointed him to the Senate in 2012.
In filing the seat that had been held by Republican Jim DeMint, Scott became the first Black senator from the South since just after the Civil War. In a 2014 special election to serve out the remainder of his term, Scott became the first Black candidate to win a statewide race in South Carolina since the Reconstruction era.