NORTH CHARLESTON, S.C. (AP) — As he launches his presidential marketing campaign on Monday, Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina is formally wading right into a GOP major battle already largely dominated by two commanding figures: former President Donald Trump and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.
Scott, the one Black Republican senator, will make his marketing campaign announcement in his hometown of North Charleston after making it official final week with the Federal Election Commission. The late morning occasion is happening at Charleston Southern University, Scott’s alma mater and a non-public college affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention.
Then he’ll spend Tuesday with donors in Charleston earlier than a whirlwind, two-day marketing campaign swing to Iowa and New Hampshire.
Like others within the GOP race, together with former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley, former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson and “Woke, Inc.” creator Vivek Ramaswamy, Scott should discover a technique to stand out in a subject led by Trump and DeSantis, the latter of whom might announce his personal bid as early as this week.
But Scott’s senior advisers notice that political environments can shift over the course of a major marketing campaign, pointing to early within the 2016 race when Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush had been seen as the highest GOP candidates earlier than Trump turned the celebration’s nominee.
One approach Scott, 57, hopes to make his mark is by leaning into extra optimistic rhetoric than his conservative rivals. With his Christian religion an integral a part of his political and private story, Scott typically quotes Scripture at his marketing campaign occasions, weaving his reliance on non secular steerage into his stump speech and even bestowing the identify “Faith in America” on his pre-launch listening tour.
In phrases of Scott’s political power, his workforce factors to his most up-to-date Senate reelection in November, when Scott defeated his Democratic opponent by greater than 20 proportion factors. Such overwhelming help in a state that votes early within the GOP’s presidential nominating calendar bodes nicely for Scott’s electability on a bigger scale, his advisers say.
There’s additionally the matter of cash. He will enter the 2024 race with additional cash available than every other presidential candidate in U.S. historical past. He had $22 million left in his marketing campaign checking account on the finish of his 2022 marketing campaign and plans to instantly switch that to his presidential coffers.
It’s sufficient cash, his workforce says, to maintain Scott on the air with steady TV adverts in early voting states till the primary spherical of votes subsequent yr.
On many points, Scott aligns with mainstream GOP positions. He desires to cut back authorities spending and prohibit abortion, saying he would signal a federal regulation to ban abortions after 15 weeks of being pregnant if elected president.
But Scott has pushed the celebration on some policing overhaul measures for the reason that killing of George Floyd, and he has often criticized Trump’s response to racial tensions. Throughout their disagreements, although, Scott has maintained a usually cordial relationship with Trump, saying in his ebook that the previous president “listened intently” to his viewpoints on race-related points.
When he was appointed to the Senate by then-Gov. Nikki Haley in 2012, Scott turned the primary Black senator from the South since simply after the Civil War. Winning a 2014 particular election to serve out the rest of his time period made him the primary Black candidate to win a statewide race in South Carolina for the reason that Reconstruction period.
He has lengthy mentioned his present time period, which runs by way of 2029, could be his final.
Scott rejects the notion that the nation is inherently racist and has repudiated the instructing of essential race principle, an instructional framework that presents the concept the nation’s establishments keep the dominance of white folks.
“Hear me clearly: America is not a racist country,” Scott has mentioned. “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.”
If Scott is profitable, he could be the primary Black particular person to win the Republican presidential nomination and the second elected to the presidency, following Barack Obama in 2008.
In a video asserting his exploratory committee earlier this yr, Scott positioned himself because the antidote to the “radical left: a self-made success story as the son of a single mother who overcame poverty. He also bemoaned Democratic leaders as needlessly dividing the country by fostering a “culture of grievance.”
Other Republicans are nonetheless deciding whether or not to wade into the presidential race, together with former Vice President Mike Pence, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and Miami Mayor Francis Suarez.
President Biden is searching for reelection, a call that has largely cleared the Democratic subject.
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