SC’s Tim Scott launches exploratory committee for 2024 presidential run

South Carolina U.S. Sen. Tim Scott has moved closer to a presidential bid by launching a 2024 exploratory committee.

Scott made his formal announcement Wednesday in a social media video, showing the Republican speaking from Fort Sumter where the Civil War started. In the video, Scott spoke about racial divides, growing up in poverty with a single mother and the Biden administration.

“Once again, our divisions run deep and the threat to our future is real,” Scott said. “Joe Biden and the radical left have chosen a culture of grievance over greatness. They’re promoting victimhood instead of personal responsibility and they’re indoctrinating our children to believe we live in an evil country.”

Scott, the U.S. Senate’s only Black Republican, will visit early voting states Iowa and New Hampshire this week, capping his trip Friday with a stop in South Carolina to meet voters in Goose Creek. He’ll also meet with donors this weekend in South Carolina as part of a Faith in America summit.

For months, Scott’s allies have been preparing for him to jump into the 2024 race.

The Opportunity Matters Fund Action political action committee, a super PAC which backs Scott, recently hired two S.C. political operatives, Mark Knoop and Matt Moore, to help with its operations in South Carolina, which holds the first-in-the-South presidential primary.

Launching an exploratory committee, which can raise money and conduct polls to see if a potential candidate has support for a potential run, is the latest in signs he plans to run. He ended his 2022 Senate reelection campaign with more than $21.7 million.

The Republican race for 2024 includes Trump, former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson and businessman Vivek Ramaswamy. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is also a potential candidate. He plans to visit the Upstate next week.

Some top Republican elected officials in the state have declared their support for specific candidates.

Trump already has the support of U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham, Gov. Henry McMaster, and U.S. Reps. Joe Wilson, William Timmons and Russell Fry.

U.S. Rep. Ralph Norman is backing Haley.

Scott, 57, was first elected to Congress in 2010 during the Tea Party wave, and appointed to the U.S. Senate in 2013 by Haley.

In a statement Wednesday, S.C. Democratic Party Chair Trav Robertson called Scott a “tea party extremist,” saying his time in Washington has been spent supporting abortion bans and “putting special interests like Wall Street and wealthy real estate developers ahead of working people.”

In a Fox News Wednesday interview, Scott said he enjoyed the attack from Democrats.

“I’m glad they’re afraid of me,” Scott said. “This is a wonderful concept. I will say this that my life disproves their lies. And that’s why they’re so afraid when conservatives stand up to be counted. Listen, our time and the majority produced the best economy we’ve seen in my lifetime. It was the most inclusive economy in the history of our country.”

Scott in 2021 said he would not run for president if Trump ran for reelection, but did not say Wednesday why he changed his mind.

“What I’ve heard is that people truly want to have a conversation about their future,” Scott said on Fox and Friends when asked how he could beat Trump. “If we focus on our uniqueness, we focus on our path to where we are, I believe we give the voters a choice so they can decide how we move forward. As opposed to trying to have a conversation about how to beat a Republican, I think we’re better off having a conversation about beating Joe Biden.”

Scott starts off in single digits in national polls.

The latest Quinnipiac University Poll had Scott at 1% nationally among Republicans. In South Carolina, a new Winthrop University Poll showed Scott with 7% of the support among S.C. Republicans.

The same Winthrop Poll showed Trump with 41% of the S.C. GOP support, followed by DeSantis at 20% and Haley at 18%.

The poll, released Wednesday, also showed Scott with a 47% approval rating to 25% who disapprove among all South Carolinians. His approval rating is 69% among Republicans in the state.