Yet Another Republican Seems to Want to Join the 2024 Presidential Race: Tim Scott

Senator Tim Scott is reportedly making preparations to enter the 2024 presidential contest, joining a crowded list of potential candidates—from former UN ambassador Nikki Haley to Republican governors Ron DeSantis, Brian Kemp, and Chris Sununu—looming behind Donald Trump, the race’s sole official entrant.

In a statement to The Wall Street Journal on Monday, Jennifer DeCasper, one of the senator’s top advisers, relayed that Scott is “excited to share his vision of hope and opportunity and hear the American people’s response.” The remark came days after Axios reported that Scott had revamped his super PAC, Opportunity Matters Fund Action, tapping former Republican senator Cory Gardner and GOP strategist Rob Collins, who was previously the executive director of Senate Republicans’ official campaign arm, as its cochairs.

Scott, the only Black Republican in the Senate, is also embarking on a “Faith in America” tour, stopping in Iowa and his home state, where he is scheduled to speak at a celebration of Black History Month with local party officials on Thursday. Meanwhile, Nikki Haley—who, as the Palmetto state’s governor, appointed Scott to a vacant Senate seat more than a decade ago—is reportedly set to announce her own presidential bid on Wednesday. Haley’s 2024 campaign will be headquartered in Charleston, South Carolina, where Scott once served as a City Council member before going on to serve in the state legislature and later the US Congress.

So far, Scott appears to be the only sitting senator seriously considering a bid, a notable departure from the GOP’s 2016 primary that saw senators Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, Rand Paul, and Lindsey Graham all fight for the nomination. Trump was ultimately able to capitalize on the crowded field of high-profile conservatives pulling potential votes from each other and win the nomination. The same scenario could play out again next year. In a Trafalgar Group poll of South Carolina GOP primary voters conducted last month, Trump edged DeSantis 43%–28%, while Scott and Haley, respectively, drew 14% and 12% of support. Republican respondents in a Yahoo News/YouGov poll earlier this month picked DeSantis over Trump 45%–41% in a head-to-head matchup, but when presented with the third option of Haley, it was Trump who came out on top. Top anti-Trump Republican fundraisers and strategists have reportedly told potential candidates to prepare to drop out well before voting begins, in order to prevent Trump from sneaking through with just a plurality of support.

For now, though, Scott, still without much national name recognition, has spent recent days focusing on police reform and charter school funding—a possible window into the makings of a stump speech. “The beauty of America is our future will not be dependent on the color of your skin, but the quality of your education,” he said in a Fox News interview this month. “That will be your destiny.” He then dropped a line that could easily be a campaign slogan: “The power of hope,” he suggested, can “lower unemployment, lower poverty” in America’s poorest communities.