April 11, 2023: Senator Tim Scott (R-S.C.) will launch a presidential exploratory committee on Wednesday, according to a source familiar, taking him one step closer to formally challenging former President Trump for the GOP nomination in 2024. (The Hill)
The launch comes as Scott makes stops in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina this week. Scott would be the highest-profile figure to jump into the GOP primary field since Nikki Haley, the former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, announced her bid in February…
…The news comes as Scott prepares to travel to the early presidential contest states of Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina. The senator is expected to launch the committee on the same day that he is in Iowa. An exploratory committee would allow Scott to raise money for future presidential campaign, as well as foot the costs for polling and travel in the run-up to his decision…
April 13, 2023: As Tim Scott moves closer to a formal presidential run, members of his own party are casting doubt on his candidacy amid low polling and a likely crowded field. (The Hill)
South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott moved closer to formally announcing a presidential bid this week with the formation of a presidential exploratory committee. The Republican rolled out a video on Wednesday, laying out his reasons for why he’s considering a run…
…When asked in an interview with CBS News whether he would endorse former President Trump if he is the 2024 GOP nominee, Scott said he plans on being the nominee.
Scott would be the highest-profile figure to jump into the GOP primary field since Nikki Haley, the former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations announced her bid in February…
April 26, 2023: Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.), who launched a 2024 presidential exploratory committee earlier this month, said on Wednesday that he hopes to have a decision on whether to run by the end of May – and that he thinks that, if he does enter the race, he could beat President Biden’s reelection bid. (The Hill)
“I know that I can beat Joe Biden. That is the issue on the table. If I get into this race, and I hope to have a decision before the end of May, I believe that we beat Joe Biden, period.” Scott said on “Fox News Tonight.”…
…If Scott enters the Republican primary ring for 2024, he’ll be up against former President Trump, as well as former United Nation’s ambassador Nikki Haley, conservative entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, former Arkansas Gov Asa Hutchinson and conservative radio host Larry Elder…
May 19, 2023: Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) is gearing up to roll out a $6 million ad campaign, part of what’s expected to an official launch of a presidential campaign Monday (The Hill)
A senior Scott official said that the senator will be launching a $5.5 million multi-platform ad campaign that will air on TV, radio, satellite and cable statewide in the early presidential primary states of New Hampshire and Iowa.
A separate seven-figure digital ad buy will also be launched. Both ad campaigns will air until the first GOP debate…
…Scott is anticipated to announce Monday that he’ll officially be running for president. Scott launched an exploratory committee last month and has been making trips to states early primary states, including Iowa and his home state of South Carolina…
May 21, 2023: Sen. Tim Scott’s (R-S.C.) decision to jump into the 2024 presidential field on Friday has put questions of how he will navigate his identity as a Black Republican front and center. (The Hill)
Scott, the only Black member of his party in the Senate, has spent much of his career skirting around his identity. Although he has acknowledged growing up in a poor, single-parent household and coming “from cotton to Congress,” he has also pushed back against arguments around race and representation to focus instead on conservative policy.
Some say this strategy will not work if Scott wants to be successful in his journey to the White House…
…Democrats have become increasingly worried about Black voter support because policies addressing some of Black Americans’ top concerns – including federal protection against restrictive voting laws, student loan debt relief, criminal justice reform and police reform measures – have stalled under the Biden Administration.
Still, only about 1 in 10 Black adults identify with the Republican Party, according to a survey by Pew Research Center…
May 22, 2023: Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) formally announced Monday that he will seek the GOP’s 2024 presidential nomination, jumping into a primary battle that has so far centered around former President Trump and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. (The Hill)
Scott announced his decision at his alma mater, Charleston Southern University, in a speech drawing on his biography of growing up poor in North Charleston, S.C., and eventually ascending to the Senate…
…Scott’s announcement makes him him the sixth major candidate to enter the 2024 Republican presidential primary, putting him on a list that also includes Trump, former United Nation’s Ambassador Nikki Haley, entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, former Gov. Asa Hutchison and radio host Larry Elder.
The field is likely to grow even larger later this week, with the expected announcement of DeSantis’s campaign…
June 6, 2023: Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) took a jab at former President Obama this week after the Democrat criticized the declared 2024 GOP presidential contender over his remarks about racial progress in this country. (The Hill)
“Let us not forget we are a land of opportunity, not a land of oppression. Democrats deny our progress to protect their power. The Left wants you to believe faith in America is a fraud and progress in our nation is a myth,” Scott said in a statement Thursday.
“The truth of MY life disproves the lies of the radical Left. We live in a country where little Black and Brown boys and girls can be President of the United States. The truth is – we’ve had one and the good news is – we will have another,” he added.
The South Carolina Republican’s remarks are in response to comments Obama made during a podcast interview with his former White House senior advisor David Axelrod published Thursday. The former president, who was asked about Scott’s messaging on race, suggested Scott was not offering solutions for how to tackle systemic racism within the country or acknowledging the difficulties Black Americans face…
July 18, 2023: A super Pac aligned with Sen. Tim Scott is dropping $40 million in fall ad reservations, the largest buy of the presidential race so far. (Politico)
Trust In The Mission PAC, the spending group boosting the South Carolina senator’s presidential campaign, will begin placing the ad buys immediately, a spokesperson for the organization told POLITICO on Tuesday.
The new television and digital advertisements are set to start running Sept. 7 – just after the super PAC’s $7 million summer ad campaign winds down – and will go through January. The television ads will run in the early nominating states of Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina – as well as on national cable networks – just as the primary debate season is underway…
…To date, Scott and his allied super PAC have run a combined $7 million worth of television and digital advertisements, trailing only the super PAC of Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis, which has already dropped $20 million and $15.5 million, respectively, per AdImpact…
July 29, 2023: Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) further weighted in on Florida’s updated educational curriculum on slavery in an interview, arguing that slavery is “antithetical to who we are” and that it “doesn’t need to be explained, that just needs to be digested.” (The Hill)
During a podcast interview with NH Journal on Friday, Scott was asked about his comments over updated and controversial education guidelines in Florida that have drawn criticism from members of both parties, including Vice President Harris and Reps. Byron Donalds (R-Fla.), Wesley Hunt (R-Texas) and John James (R-Mich.)
Harris alleged that officials were trying to “push propaganda to our children” while Donalds said in a tweet that “the attempt to feature personal benefits if slavery is wrong & needs to be adjusted.”
Among some of the points that have drawn controversy is one that says that “instruction includes how slaves developed skills which, in some instances, could be applied for their personal benefit.”
Scott first weighed in on the curriculum on Thursday, saying “there is no silver lining in slavery.”
“Slavery was really about separating families, about mutilating humans and even raping their wives. It was just devastating.” he added.
But the South Carolina Republican doubled down on Friday, noting “what I said isn’t controversial at all.”
“Slavery has no redeeming benefit, no redeeming value. There’s no silver lining in slavery,” he told the podcast. “The fact is very clear that what slavery was about was about was the antithetical to who we are as Americans. We founded this nation upon the notion of freedom. Slavery is the deprivation of freedom.”…
August 4, 2023: Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.), a GOP presidential candidate, said Friday that he’d finish the border wall started during former President Trump’s administration if elected to the White House. (The Hill)
“As president of the United States, I will finish this wall, and I will use the available technology to surveil our border to stop fentanyl from killing another 70,000 Americans in the next 12 months,” Scott said on Fox News’s “America’s Newsroom.”
Scott blamed President Biden for illegal crossings and deaths from fentanyl, knocking the administration for not closing the southern border…
…”The devastation that we are experiencing as Americans is preventable. Much if it is preventable if we finish the wall, use technology, fire Joe Biden and hire me,” Scott said. “I will be the president that finishes that wall.”…
August 4, 2023: Republican White House hopeful Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina on Friday questioned the legality of campaign promises made by former President Donald Trump and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis to end birthright citizenship for the children of immigrants living in the U.S. unlawfully. (CBS News)
Asked whether he would join Trump and DeSantis in pledging to revoke birthright citizenship through an executive action if elected president, Scott said he does not believe presidents can do so unilaterally, echoing legal scholars who believe the change would require an amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
“I think the Congress would have to act. The president cannot do that by himself or herself outright.” Scott told CBS News after a roundtable with community leaders in Yuma, Arizona, an area along the U.S.-Mexico border that has been record levels of migrant crossings in recent years.
Asked if he thinks Trump and DeSantis are making promises that they would not have the legal authority to keep, Scott responded, “Yeah, I don’t know how you do that without addressing the constitutional challenges.”…
…Amending the Constitution must be proposed by a supermajority in Congress or a constitutional convention by two-thirds of all states. It then requires ratification by three-fourths of the states…
August 8, 2023: Sen. Tim Scott’s (R-S.C.) presidential campaign is launching a whopping $8 million TV, radio and digital ad buy – the second multimillion dollar ad campaign the senator has rolled out in recent months, according to a senior Scott official. (The Hill)
Of the $8 million, $6.6 million will include a broadcast TV, cable and satellite ad campaign that will extend until the end of November and be aired in both Iowa and New Hampshire according to the official.
During that same period, a “substantial” six-figure amount will be geared toward digital and radio…
…Scott’s campaign last rolled out a multimillion ad campaign in May, spending $6 million around the time of his presidential launch…
November 12, 2023: Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina announced Sunday night that he is dropping out of the 2024 Republican presidential campaign, shocking a TV interviewer and even his own campaign staff with an abrupt departure from the race. (NBC News)
“When I go back to Iowa, it will not be as a presidential candidate. I am suspending my campaign,” Scott said in an appearance on former GOP Rep. Trey Gowdy’s Fox News program.
“I think the voters, who are the most remarkable people on the planet, have been really clear that they’re telling me: not now,” Scott continued.
The announcement was a surprise: Gowdy, a former colleague of Scott’s in the House of Representatives, appeared to do a double-take as he made his statement. Multiple Scott staffers told NBC News they got no warning he was ending the campaign, finding out only by watching him on TV.
Scott’s campaign even sent out a fundraising email not long before he announced he was leaving the race. “We want to give you ONE LAST CHANCE to donate this weekend and help Tim reach his campaign goal. Can you chip in to help Tim win?” the campaign wrote…
November 12, 2023: Republican presidential candidate Tim Scott announced late Sunday that he was dropping out of the 2024 race, about two months before the start of voting in Iowa’s leadoff caucuses. (KSBY)
The South Carolina senator made the surprise announcement on “Sunday Night in America” with Trey Gowdy. The news comes as Scott continued to struggler in the polls and just days after the third Republican primary debate, in which he again failed to break through.
His campaign spokesperson Nathan Brand confirmed the news to The Associated Press. Gowdy said after the interview that the announcement surprised him.
Scott, the Senate’s only Black Republican, announced his intention to run in May. He entered the race with more cash than any other Republican candidate but couldn’t find a lane in a field dominated by former President Donald Trump.
January 16, 2024: Like Nikki Haley, Sen. Tim Scott has establishment credentials, is seen as a rising start in the party, and was able to score the support of some major Republican donors. On paper, Scott was exactly the type of candidate who would have once been a shoo-in for the nomination. But Scott struggled to gain popular support, hovering below 3 percent in polling averages before his exit. (Vox)
That led him to suddenly “suspend” his campaign in a November 2023 interview with Fox New’s Trey Gowdy. “I think the voters who are the most remarkable people on the planet have really been clear that they’re telling me, “Not now, Tim,” Scott said on Sunday Night in America.
Scott, a three-term South Carolina senator and the only Black Republican in the chamber, framed much of his candidacy around pushing back against Democrats’ views on systemic racism and other disparities in the U.S. Over the past few years, he’s repeatedly cited his own success as negating the idea that Black Americans are disadvantaged by systematic racism and as proof that anyone can pull themselves up by their bootstraps…