The Republican primaries are encouraged. All eyes are on Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who is expected to step in next week, but while there are already more than half a dozen candidates of some weight willing to run for the Republican Party’s nomination for the presidential of 2024. The last to do the paperwork and register on the electoral register to compete with Donald Trump has been Tim Scott, the only black senator from his party.
Scott has not yet made the political announcement as such, but he is already registered with the Federal Election Commission. The 57-year-old South Carolina senator is scheduled to hold an event in his hometown of North Charleston this Monday to launch his candidacy.
Following the candidacy of former President Donald Trump, former US ambassador to the UN and former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley; Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchison; the billionaire biotech entrepreneur and scourge of ideology woke, Vivek Ramaswamy; fellow businessman Perry Johnson; political commentator Larry Elder; politician and businessman Rolland Roberts, son of the West Virginia senator of the same name, and now Tim Scott.
Also expected to compete for the Republican nomination are former Trump Vice President Mike Pence and the former president’s looming rival, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. Various US media have published that Ron DeSantis plans to make his candidacy official next week with a video on social networks. That would be followed by a fundraiser Wednesday and Thursday in Miami and a rally the following week in Dunedin, the Florida town where he spent his childhood, outside Tampa.
DeSantis has started campaigning before making his candidacy official. Last weekend he had various events in Iowa, where he criticized the “culture of defeat” that has settled in the Republican Party, in a shot at Trump, which he did not quote.
Scott, religious and conservative
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Waiting for DeSantis, Sen. Tim Scott is a deeply religious and conservative candidate. He often quotes the Bible in campaign rallies and has spoken out in favor of a federal law that prohibits abortions after the first 15 weeks of pregnancy (in Spain, the deadline law allows abortion in the first 14 weeks of gestation no other requirement).
Scott is the grandson of a worker in the cotton fields of the deep South of the United States. He believes that his example proves that in his country there is no racism that prevents those who strive to prosper. The senator often talks about his roots. He was raised by a single mother who worked long hours as a nursing assistant to support him and his brother after divorcing his father. A self-described mediocre student, Scott graduated from Charleston Southern University with a BA in Political Science before opening an insurance business.
“Hear me clearly: America is not a racist country. It is a setback to fight discrimination with different types of discrimination. And it is a mistake to try to use our painful past to dishonestly shut down debates in the present.” Scott said in an interview with NBC two years ago.
Scott became the first black senator from the South since just after the Civil War. In a special election held in 2014 to fill out the term remaining until last year, Scott became the first black candidate to win a statewide election in South Carolina since Reconstruction. In 2022 he swept the reelection with 62.9% of the vote, compared to 37% for Democrat Krystle Matthews.
Scott has already scheduled television ads to begin running in Iowa and New Hampshire early next week, the largest ad spend by a potential or declared candidate in the early stages of the 2024 nomination campaign.
For now, negative publicity against DeSantis paid for by Trump supporters has predominated on television, in a demonstration that the former president sees him as his great rival. Trump has a huge lead in the polls, but primaries often end with surprises and unforeseen plot twists.
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