Trump to visit SC to roll out leadership operation for 2024 presidential bid, report says

Former President Donald Trump will make a return to South Carolina later this month for his first presidential campaign event in Columbia, POLITICO reported Thursday.

A source familiar with Trump’s visit and the event confirmed the former president’s plans to The State newspaper. No date or venue has been announced for Trump’s late January visit.

A Trump spokesman did not immediately return a request for comment.

The POLITICO report, citing advisers, says the event will not be a rally but an “intimate” event, where the former president will announce his leadership operation in the Palmetto State, home to the first-in-the-South primary. A Trump campaign spokesman told the Associated Press later that Trump will visit the state later this month, and that he is planning to hold his first public event.

Trump announced his 2024 presidential bid first after the November 2022 midterm elections, receiving early endorsements from South Carolina Republican Gov. Henry McMaster, who was sworn in for a second full term Wednesday, and freshman U.S. Rep. Russell Fry, an Horry County Republican.

A close S.C. ally of Trump’s, U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham, has yet to say whether he’ll support Trump but was expected to take the holidays to decide his endorsement.

A handful of other Republicans are possible candidates to seek the 2024 presidential nomination, including Trump’s former ambassador to the United Nations, former S.C. Gov. Nikki Haley, and U.S. Sen. Tim Scott, the Senate’s sole Black Republican, who won reelection in 2022 for what he says will be his last term.

Neither Haley nor Scott have announced yet whether they’ll seek the 2024 nomination. Haley previously said she would not if Trump ran, but has since teased a possible announcement.

Trump last visited South Carolina in March 2022, when he helped to boost the campaigns of Fry and Katie Arrington.

Fry won a multi-candidate primary to oust former Rep. Tom Rice, a target of Trump’s after Rice voted to impeach him after the Jan. 6 U.S. Capitol riot. Arrington, a former state House lawmaker like Fry, lost her primary to Republican U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace.

Winning South Carolina’s early voting content has often been a spring board to the White House.

South Carolina’s Republican primary has elected every GOP presidential nominee since 1980, with the exception of the 2012 race when Mitt Romney won the nomination. South Carolina Republicans voted for former U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich.

Trump, who remains popular among S.C. Republicans, won the South Carolina primary in 2016. In 2020, the S.C. Republican Party nixed the primary.

Beyond Trump, several potential 2024 candidates have made their own visits to South Carolina, mostly before the 2022 midterms. Former Vice President Mike Pence has made at least six stops in South Carolina since 2021, and former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has visited the state twice.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis attended fundraising events in Charleston, and South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem was the keynote speaker at U.S. Rep. Jeff Duncan’s annual Faith and Freedom Barbecue in 2021.

This is a developing story. It may be updated.