CNN
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South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott on Monday will formally enter the Republican presidential primaries as he looks to upend a contest that has so far been dominated by coverage of former President Donald Trump and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who is expected to enter the fray in the coming days.
The most prominent black figure in the Republican Party, Scott will address supporters at his alma mater, Charleston Southern University, in his hometown of North Charleston.
After the “major announcement,” Scott heads to Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina—states he frequented on his “Faith in America” tour prior to his announcement—before returning to the Falcon’s Island state next week for GOP Senator. Joni Ernst Annual “Roast and Ride” Gathering.
Scott, 57, is no stranger to innovative campaigns. In 2010, he became the first black Republican elected to the United States House of Representatives from South Carolina in more than a century. Years later, after being nominated for his Senate seat (he won a special election to retain the seat), Scott made history as the first black U.S. senator from his native South Carolina.
Before his entry into the presidential racesenior campaign officials briefed reporters on their vision for the way forward, acknowledging that he will have to win the support of Trump and DeSantis, but promising — in a veiled investigation into both — that his candidacy will have a tone more optimistic and will condemn the culture. of victimhood and grievance that, as described by his collaborators, has taken hold of both parties.
Faith and optimism, one said, will be the keys to his underdog campaign.
“Seeds of greatness, not seeds of grievance, are our future,” Scott said at the Heritage Foundation’s 50th anniversary summit in April.
The South Carolina senator received a boost on Sunday, less than 24 hours before his commencement ceremony, when it was learned that his colleague Sen. John Thune of South Dakota, the No. 2 Republican in the Senate, had planned to endorse it.
“I think he would be a great candidate. I’m excited about it. I’ve been rooting for him,” Thune previously told CNN. “I think he’s getting a lot of encouragement from his teammates. It’s very well thought out and respected.”
A senior campaign official said Scott will continue to invest resources and time in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina as the campaign expands.
Although Scott is from South Carolina, they won’t be counting on him as a firewall, according to a senior campaign official, who stressed that Scott will have to compete as a top-tier candidate in other early primary and caucus states like New Hampshire and Iowa. .
Even before the official launch, Scott revealed his plans to draw from his deep campaign coffers — with millions now transferred from his Senate account — through a series of big ad buys in Iowa and New Hampshire.
The initial $5.5 million TV ad buy, including broadcast, cable satellite and radio, will air statewide starting Wednesday and run through the first GOP debate in August
During the same period, Scott will also launch a seven-figure digital advertising campaign.
Although only now officially entering the race, Scott has already been caught up in the grind of the campaign season. Shortly after announcing an exploratory committee last month, he was dogged by questions about his position on a possible national abortion ban.
After initially avoiding the issue and refusing to say whether he would support a 15-week ban, Scott told WMUR he would support restrictions starting at 20 weeks. Days later, however, Scott said in an interview with NBC News that he would “literally sign the most conservative pro-life legislation that can pass through Congress.”
Pressed on what exactly that meant, given that he had applauded DeSantis for signing a six-week ban in Florida, Scott pushed back, saying it was a decision for the states to make.
“I’m not going to talk about six (weeks) or five or seven or ten,” Scott said.
Back at the senator’s church near Charleston, hundreds of worshipers see him most weekends.
“I’ve heard him talk about hope and opportunity for 25 years. He is who he is. It is a part of their history. And so I don’t think it’s going to change,” said Greg Suratt, founding pastor of Seacoast Church.
“I think one misconception people might have about him is that his kindness, his humility, translates as weakness. And they don’t know the Tim Scott that I know, I’d like to see him as an iron fist in a velvet glove,” Suratt added, noting that even people who disagree with his politics tend to like him as an individual.
Scott’s faith and humble beginnings will be a central theme of his campaign, an aide said. Scott grew up in a single-parent home in North Charleston, where his mother worked long hours to keep her family afloat.
“Think of the child whose grandmother has to open the stove to heat the house in the dead of winter. I think I feel that way now,” Scott said at a town hall in New Hampshire this month. “So many people with our energy prices doubling in the last two years, they’re going through a crisis like I had when I was just a kid.”
On his listening tour, Scott said that between the ages of 7 and 14, he was “a bit of a drifter”, failing world geography, civics, English and Spanish in the first year of secondary school But thanks to the “tireless” encouragement of his mother and mentor, the late John Moniz, a Chick-fil-A manager, Scott says he was able to graduate from Charleston Southern University. He would eventually open his own insurance agency affiliated with Allstate.
Scott credits Moniz with teaching him that anyone can “succeed beyond their circumstances” if they take responsibility for themselves.
“In today’s culture of victimhood, nobody seems to want to be responsible for themselves,” Scott said earlier this month. “My mentor literally taught me that if you take responsibility for yourself, that in that mirror you see the problem, but in that same mirror, you find the promise.”
Scott’s political career began in 1995, when he ran for a special election on the Charleston City Council, winning a seat he would hold for nearly 15 years. After one term as a state legislator, Scott won a seat in the United States House representing South Carolina’s 1st district.
Fellow presidential candidate and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley appointed Scott to the U.S. Senate in 2012 to fill a vacancy left by the retirement of Sen. Jim DeMint. He retained the seat in a 2014 special election, was re-elected to a full term in 2016 and later won a third term last year.
“To every mother struggling to make ends meet, wondering if their efforts are in vain, they’re not,” Scott said after being nominated by Haley.
During his time in the Senate, Scott has amassed a strictly conservative voting record, but he has also led bipartisan talks on police reform alongside New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker, a Democrat.
Those talks have been going on for years now, as of the summer of 2020, with then-California Sen. Kamala Harris also involved, but hopes of a comprehensive deal were effectively abandoned in 2021. (Talks continue, according to , but there is currently no legislation on the point.)
In 2017, his “Investment in Opportunity Act,” which had some Democratic support, was included in the controversial Republican tax cut bill. The provision called for the establishment of “opportunity zones,” which would create tax incentives for companies investing in parts of the country struggling with poverty and stagnant economies.
Still, South Carolina Democrats welcomed Scott to the race with harsh words about his political record and an attempt to tie him to the GOP’s far right.
“We know how dangerous Tea Party extremist Tim Scott is,” South Carolina Democratic Party Chairwoman Christale Spain said in a statement. “From promising to sign the most conservative abortion ban possible as president, to doubling down on his role as the ‘architect’ of the 2017 GOP tax scam that pushed tax cuts for the ultra-rich in at the expense of working families, Scott has proven himself to be as MAGA as the rest of the 2024 field.”
While Scott has expressed more openness to working with Democrats than most Republicans in Washington, he also has one of the most conservative voting records in Congress. He rarely broke with Trump during the latter’s presidency, though he criticized Trump’s response to white supremacist violence in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017.
“What we want to see from our president is clarity and moral authority,” Scott told Vice News at the time. “And that moral authority is compromised.”
Scott largely backed away from that line, however, after a meeting with Trump at the White House.
“(Trump) was very clear that the perception he got from his comments was not exactly what he intended with those comments,” Scott told CBS News.
