Sen. Tim Scott Launches Presidential Exploratory Committee

Topline

Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) launched a committee to explore a run for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination on Wednesday, inching closer to becoming the fourth official Republican challenger to former President Donald Trump.

Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., speaks during a Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee hearing … [+] on March 28, 2023. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)

CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images

Key Facts

Donald Trump: The former president announced his entry into the race a week after the November election on wounded footing as prominent GOP members blamed him for a string of midterm election losses that left the party with a slimmer-than-expected majority in the House, but he maintains broad support among those who voted for him in previous elections.

Mike Pence: The former vice president, while traversing the country to promote his new memoir, So Help Me God, has left open the possibility of a presidential run, and recently made a firm rebuke of his former boss before journalists and politicos at Washington’s annual Gridiron dinner: “History will hold Donald Trump accountable for January 6 . . . President Trump was wrong. His reckless words endangered my family and everyone at the Capitol that day,” he said.

Ron DeSantis: Unlike Trump, the midterm election was a boon to the Florida governor, who won a second term by a wide margin and became the first GOP candidate in 20 years to win Miami-Dade County, and while he is unlikely to announce before the Florida legislative session ends in May, he began a multi-state tour in February that looks very much like a precursor to a presidential campaign.

Asa Hutchinson: Hutchinson, who served eight years as governor of Arkansas until the end of last year, launched his campaign in April—Hutchinson has been a vocal critic of Trump, going so far as to say the January 6 Capitol riot “disqualifies” him from running again and that he should drop out of the race after being indicted in New York.

Tim Scott: The South Carolina senator—who raised speculation that he would enter the race earlier this year when he embarked on a multi-state tour to promote his political message—launched an exploratory committee in mid-April, paired with a video announcement where he vows to “never back down in defense of the conservative values that make America exceptional.”

Chris Christie: The ex-Trump ally turned critic, who is weighing a second run for the GOP nomination after dropping out of the 2016 primary race, told the Washington Examiner in a mid-March interview he will announce a decision on running for president within the “next 45 to 60 days,” and will also travel to the early nominating state of New Hampshire on March 27 to speak at Saint Anselm College.

Nikki Haley: After vowing not to run against Trump, the former South Carolina governor became his first official challenger in February, calling for a “new generation of leadership” in a video announcement, while attacking President Joe Biden’s “abysmal record” and noting that Republicans have lost the popular vote in seven out of the last eight elections, but Haley is polling at a low 3% among potential 2024 GOP presidential candidates, according to a January Morning Consult poll.

Vivek Ramaswamy: Less than a week after Haley announced her campaign, the 37-year-old investment firm manager—who made Forbes’ list of America’s richest entrepreneurs under 40 in 2016 with a net worth of $600 million at the time—entered the fray with a video announcement in which he dubs “covidism, climatism and gender ideology” as “new secular religions,” a statement that builds on what he calls an “anti-woke” message detailed in his 2021 book, “Woke, Inc.”

Mike Pompeo: Also out with a new book titled Never Give an Inch: Fighting for the America I Love, the former secretary of state told CBS in January he would decide on a 2024 presidential bid in “the next handful of months.”

Chris Sununu: The New Hampshire governor raised the prospects of a possible 2024 run on Sunday, telling CBS News’ Face the Nation host Margaret Brennan on Sunday that it would be “an opportunity to change things,” after recently taking steps to solidify his political future with the launching of a new super-PAC.

Glenn Youngkin: He raised his national profile campaigning for GOP candidates during the 2022 midterm election, but the Virginia governor has remained noncommittal on a run for president, telling NBC News in January he is “humbled” by talk of a potential candidacy and remains “so focused” on his current role.

Big Number

49%. That’s the percentage of GOP voters who said they would cast their ballots for Trump in a hypothetical 2024 primary, compared to 26.2% who said they would vote for DeSantis, according to FiveThirtyEight’s poll tracker.

Key Background

Confirmed and potential contenders began to ramp up their political activity in February. Pence and DeSantis both spoke at the Club for Growth’s annual gathering of heavyweight donors in early March, while Trump was snubbed from the event over a feud with the club that began during the 2022 primaries. He instead headlined the Conservative Political Action Conference, which Pence and DeSantis did not attend. Trump and DeSantis visited Iowa within days of each other in early March and are expected to accelerate their cross-country travels in the coming months. DeSantis, who had largely shied away from criticizing Trump, gave his strongest rebuke to date of the former president in a March interview with Piers Morgan, where he criticized Trump for not firing former White House medical advisor Anthony Fauci, who has been demonized by the right for his Covid-19 policy recommendations. Trump has also criticized DeSantis for his Covid-19 shutdown policies, along with his previous support for Medicare and Social Security reforms, using the nickname “Ron DeSanctimonious” to refer to his former protege. DeSantis fired back at the nickname in his interview with Morgan, where he said “call me whatever you want, just as long as you also call me a winner because that’s what we’ve been able to do in Florida.”

What To Watch For

The outcome of five ongoing law enforcement investigations against Trump and whether they will affect his standing as a candidate. Trump pleaded not guilty to 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in Manhattan criminal court on April 4 in connection with a broad hush-money scheme prosecutors said he orchestrated to cover up three affair allegations. Separately, the New York Attorney General is investigating his family business practices. The Justice Department has two ongoing probes into Trump’s role in the January 6 insurrection, along with his handling of classified documents he took to Mar-A-Lago after leaving office. The Fulton County, Georgia District Attorney’s office is also investigating Trump’s role in attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election in the state.

Tangent

Pence is also facing a Justice Department probe over his handling of classified documents after leaving office. Approximately 13 documents with classified markings were discovered by Pence’s lawyers and FBI agents at his Carmel, Indiana, home in January. The federal government collected more than 300 documents with classified markings in total from Trump after he left office, including more than 100 classified documents turned over to the National Archives in January last year, another batch investigators collected from Mar-A-Lago in June 2023 and the records seized in an FBI raid at Mar-A-Lago on August 8. President Joe Biden, who is expected to announce a re-election bid in the coming months, is also facing a Justice Department investigation into his handling of classified documents after more than two dozen records with classified markings were found in Biden’s possession between November and January in searches by the FBI and his personal attorneys.