Long-Rumored 2024 GOP Presidential Candidate Officially Files Paperwork to Run

Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) filed paperwork to run for president in 2024 ahead of a potential announcement, according to records published by a federal agency on Friday.

Scott filed paperwork with the Federal Election Commission (FEC), essentially guaranteeing that he is preparing to enter the Republican primary for 2024. A principal political committee, “Tim Scott for America” and several other political committees were named in Scott’s filing.

It’s not officially clear when or if Scott will launch his 2024 campaign, but reports have indicated that an announcement will come Monday, May 22. An unnamed official with Scott’s campaign told The Hill that he will also roll out a $6 million advertising campaign in the meantime.

“This campaign is built to win and has the resources and messenger to deliver a Republican nomination and ultimately the White House,” an individual described as a “senior Scott official” told The Hill.

Scott, who last month formed an exploratory committee allowing him to raise and spend money while weighing a White House campaign, is scheduled to make an announcement on Monday in his hometown of North Charleston regarding his decision on a presidential bid, his campaign also told The Associated Press.

Scott has been traveling to early voting states including Iowa, which holds the leadoff caucuses, and New Hampshire, host of the first-in-the-nation primary. He’s also campaigning in his home state, which holds the first Southern primary next year.

Several major Republican 2024 challengers have already launched formal White House bids, including former President Donald Trump, businessman Vivek Ramawamy, former U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley, former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, and radio host Larry Elder. There have been indications that Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, former Vice President Mike Pence, and former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie will enter the race, but none have so far made formal announcements.

But polls have shown that Trump, who is facing multiple investigations as well as criminal charges in Manhattan, is by far the No. 1 GOP candidate. A recent RealClearPolitics aggregate of polls shows that 56 percent support Trump, 19 percent support DeSantis, about 6 percent back Pence, 4 percent back Haley, 3.5 percent back Ramaswamy, 2 percent back Scott, and 1.3 percent support Elder.

While Scott is trailing in the polls so far, he does appear to have one major advantage. He would start a bid with more campaign dollars than any of his 2024 rivals, or roughly $22 million that he can automatically convert from his U.S. Senate campaign account to a presidential campaign, reported the AP. The figure is the most any candidate in history has had when beginning a campaign for president, according to the Federal Election Commission.

Possible Campaign Messaging

Scott, who is black, has criticized Trump for comments that he claimed were racist while Trump was in office, including a statement he made in late 2020 to news outlets that Trump “need[ed] to correct” comments he made during a debate with Joe Biden. Scott alleged Trump did not not explicitly condemn white supremacists, saying: “White supremacy should be denounced at every turn. I think the president [Trump] misspoke, and he needs to correct it.”

Amid the 2020 Black Lives Matter riots, Scott backed what he described as a police overhaul bill that included a number of sweeping changes. That bill, which failed in the Senate, for example, would have reformed “hiring practices by providing more resources to ensure the makeup of police departments more closely matches the communities they serve,” according to a Scott news release issued at the time.

And earlier this year, Scott made a statement on the floor of the Senate after the death of Tyre Nichols, a black man, allegedly at the hands of five black Memphis police officers. He said that senators should agree on  “simple legislation” about an overhaul of policing after the JUSTICE Act didn’t get enough support in the Senate.

Similarly, Scott has accused Democrats of exploiting racial tensions to gain politically. Last year, Scott also said that the United States “is not a racist country” following the mass shooting at a Buffalo, New York, supermarket and decried what he believes were attempts to “point fingers” at their “political opponents” and not the shooter.

Some Republican donors, meanwhile, also appear to favor Scott, according to a Reuters report published Monday. Larry Ellison, the founder of Oracle and one of the richest people in the world, reportedly is planning to help Scott’s campaign and has backed Scott’s initiatives in the past.

Andy Sabin, the owner of a metals company and longtime Republican donor, told Reuters earlier this month that he is plotting to back Scott instead of DeSantis amid recent concerns about DeSantis’ electability.

During a town hall event in May, Scott expressed confidence that he can beat Biden during a 2024 general election, saying that the president is “incompetent” and has been “coopted by the radical left in his party.”

“He ran as a uniter, he’s become a divider. You look at his policy positions. You look at the last State of the Union, what he said was that I am going to do what the radical left of my party wants me to do,” Scott said during the event.

Scott’s national profile was raised when he delivered the Republican response to Biden’s state of the union address in early 2021, giving him the televised platform to speak to the country.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.