COLUMBIA, S.C. — Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina made it authentic Friday: He’s working for president.
Scott, the Senate’s best Black Republican, filed bureaucracy with the Federal Election Commission pointing out his goal to hunt his celebration’s nomination in 2024. His candidacy will check whether or not a extra constructive imaginative and prescient of America’s long term can resonate with GOP citizens who’ve increased partisan brawlers in recent times.
The deeply spiritual 57-year-old former insurance coverage dealer has made his grandfather’s paintings within the cotton fields of the Deep South a bedrock of his political id. Yet he rejects the perception that racism stays a robust power in society, and he has forged his candidacy and upward push from generational poverty as the conclusion of a dream best imaginable in America.
Scott, who final month shaped an exploratory committee permitting him to lift and spend cash whilst weighing a White House marketing campaign, has scheduled a formal announcement on Monday at Charleston Southern University, a non-public Baptist faculty and Scott’s alma mater, in his fatherland of North Charleston.
Scott already has scheduled TV advertisements to start out airing within the early balloting states Iowa and New Hampshire early subsequent week, probably the most vital promoting expenditure through a attainable or declared candidate within the early phases of the 2024 nominating marketing campaign.
Scott tries to concentrate on hopeful subject matters and keep away from divisive language to differentiate himself from the grievance-based politics liked through the ones main the GOP box, equivalent to former President Donald Trump and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who hasn’t but entered the race however is anticipated to take action quickly.
The senator refuses to border his personal existence tale across the nation’s racial inequities. He insists that those that disagree along with his perspectives at the factor are seeking to “weaponize race to divide us,” and that “the truth of my life disproves their lies.”
During a February discuss with to Iowa, which holds the primary 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 stated.
But Scott has his limits. During that very same shuttle, he railed in opposition to political correctness in a lot the similar type 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 stated. “Tell every white kid they’re oppressors. Tell Black and brown kids their destiny is grievance, not greatness.”
Scott speaks regularly about his hardscrabble roots. He used to be raised through a unmarried mom who labored lengthy hours as a nurse’s assistant to supply for him and his brother after her divorce from their father. Scott, who describes himself as a lackluster pupil, graduated from Charleston Southern University with a political science level ahead of opening an insurance coverage industry.
Scott’s religion is an integral a part of his political and private tale. Describing himself as a “born-again believer,” Scott regularly quotes Scripture at marketing campaign occasions, weaving his reliance on non secular steering into his stump speech and the use of “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 moral authority 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 Nikki Haley 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.
He easily won reelection last year and said his current term, which runs through 2029, would be his last.
As a senator, he has been a go-to Republican voice on issues including policing and was the GOP’s chief negotiator on legislation that ultimately stalled in 2021. He has also spoken on the Senate floor about his personal experiences as a Black man in America.
“I have felt the anger, the frustration, the sadness and the humiliation that comes with feeling like you’re being targeted for nothing more than just being yourself,” Scott said in 2016, recounting how he was pulled over seven times in a year. He was once stopped by a U.S. Capitol Police officer who recognized the Senate lapel pin that Scott was wearing — but did not recognize Scott.
Scott rejects the notion that the country is inherently racist and has repudiated the teaching of critical race theory, an academic framework that presents the idea that the nation’s institutions maintain the dominance of white people.
“Hear me clearly: America is not a racist country,” Scott said. “It’s backwards to fight discrimination with different types of discrimination. And it’s wrong to try to use our painful past to dishonestly shut down debates in the present.”
Scott believes parents should have more oversight over what their kids learn in public schools about race, sexual orientation and gender identity.
Scott has twice addressed the Republican National Convention — in 2012 as a first-term congressman and in 2020 as a senator. At the last GOP convention, he praised Trump for building “the most inclusive economy ever” and for supporting funding for historically Black colleges and universities.
After Biden’s White House victory, Scott was tapped to give the GOP response to the new president’s first address to Congress.
Others in the GOP 2024 race include entrepreneur and “Woke, Inc.” author Vivek Ramaswamy, former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson and radio show host Larry Elder. DeSantis, former Vice President Mike Pence and former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie are among those who are expected to announce campaigns soon.
If Scott is successful, he would be the first Black person to win the Republican presidential nomination and the second elected to the presidency, following Barack Obama in 2008.
Scott frequently mentions that his family made it “from cotton to Congress in one lifetime” — a reference to his grandfather who left grade school to pick cotton in the Deep South.
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Associated Press writer Thomas Beaumont in Des Moines, Iowa, contributed to this report.
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Meg Kinnard can be reached at http://twitter.com/MegKinnardAP
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