A new name has entered the Republican Presidential race. But it remains to be seen how long he’ll be in it.
Tim Scott has filed paperwork with the Federal Elections Commission. He’s all in.
Scott–from South Carolina–is notably the only Black Republican in the Senate and won his most recent election there by 26 points. He launched a presidential exploratory committee in April. His messaging has been emphasizing his evangelical faith, his race and his experience growing up as the son of a single mother. He often preaches “individual responsibility” and said his approach was guided by the belief that the US is “the land of opportunity and not the land of oppression.” He’s also got a $22 million dollar war chest.
Scott has long been seen as a sort of rising star within his party, given his relative youth, his race, his soft-spoken personality, and his commitment to criminal justice reform. He got his big break when he delivered the GOP response to Biden’s address to a joint session of Congress in 2021, which gave him a prominent platform to speak to the country. Scott has also been a Republican willing to attack former President Donald Trump, even during his presidency.
“I’m not going to defend the indefensible. I’m not here to do that,” Scott said in the wake of the 2017 white supremacist rally in Charlottesville in an interview with Vice News before adding that Trump’s “moral authority” had been “compromised.”
Trump, however, is the most pressing obstacle to Scott’s presidential ambitions. A recent Washington Post/ABC News survey showed Scott polling in the single digits in a potential Republican primary, with Trump the clear front-runner for the nomination. He’s also up against another South Carolinian in Nikki Haley, who is sort of in the same anti-Trump lane.
Nevertheless, Scott is confident he can take down Biden. During a “Faith in America” town hall in Manchester, New Hampshire, earlier this month, Scott said the president was “incompetent” and has been “coopted by the radical left in his party.”
