Republican South Carolina Senator Tim Scott officially announced his campaign to win the Republican 2024 presidential primary on Monday, joining a growing field of Republican candidates eager to take on President Joe Biden next year.
Scott, who has served in the Senate for a decade, positioned himself as a reliable conservative willing to take on the progressive left’s lurch to Woke radicalism.
“From the time the sun goes down until the sun comes up, Joe Biden and the radical left are attacking every single rung of the ladder that helped me climb. And that’s why I’m announcing today that I am running for president of the United States of America,” Scott said.
Woke Radicalism Opposes Scott’s Climb to Success
Scott’s decision to run will put him at odds with former President Donald Trump, though his announcement didn’t attract a negative response from him. Instead, Trump wished him well in a post on his Truth Social platform.
“Good luck to Senator Tim Scott in entering the Republican Presidential Primary race. It is rapidly loading up with lots of people, and Tim is a big step up from Ron DeSanctimonious, who is totally unelectable,” Trump wrote.
The president went on to praise the senator’s work on establishing Opportunity Zones during his time in the White House, and described the program as “highly successful.”
Polling Among Candidates
Trump’s treatment of Scott is likely so different from his treatment of Florida Governor Ron DeSantis can probably be put down to the fact that DeSantis is the only Republican candidate so far who has demonstrated an ability to attract a significant number of Republican voters. Tim Scott’s support among GOP voters has started in the single digits, while several polls have repeatedly shown that DeSantis is capable of reaching support in the high thirties.
According to the latest average polling data from FiveThirtyEight, however, DeSantis’ polling has gradually declined since March, with the Florida governor receiving an average of around 20 percent in the polls, while Trump remains comfortable above 50 percent. As of May 23, Trump has an average of 53.5 percent support among GOP voters, while a Morning Consult survey found the former president leading DeSantis by 43 points, taking 61 percent of GOP voters’ support overall.
Given the former president’s once-close ties with the governor of Florida, the sudden turn in the pair’s relationship could easily be blamed on DeSantis’ popularity among the party. Trump’s kind words for Scott, however, could be explained by a number of things.
Not only does Trump know that Scott doesn’t pose an immediate threat to his campaign, but he also knows that as Republican candidates drop out, he’ll need to win over their voters to prevent DeSantis from mounting an effective campaign against him.
Trump, then, may simply be looking to the future.
Jack Buckby is 19FortyFive’s Breaking News Editor. He is a British author, counter-extremism researcher, and journalist based in New York. Reporting on the U.K., Europe, and the U.S., he works to analyze and understand left-wing and right-wing radicalization, and reports on Western governments’ approaches to the pressing issues of today. His books and research papers explore these themes and propose pragmatic solutions to our increasingly polarized society.
