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GOP Sen. Tim Scott’s Political Trips, Fundraising Fuels 2024 Buzz

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OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.


The 2024 Republican presidential landscape just got more interesting.

There’s been a lot of speculation about what Donald Trump will do, but a new report hints that a top Senate Republican may also be considering a presidential run.

“Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina keeps hauling in massive amounts of campaign cash as he runs for reelection in the 2022 midterms, and that’s sparking more speculation about a potential 2024 Republican presidential nomination bid,” Fox News reported.

“Scott, the only Black Republican in the Senate and a rising star in the GOP, brought in $8.3 million during the July-September third quarter of fundraising. That follows an eye-popping $9.6 million Scott raked in during the April-June second quarter of fundraising. So far this year the senator’s raised nearly $20 million,” Fox News added.

“Scott has become a high-profile Republican during his tenure in the Senate. He grabbed national attention earlier this year when he gave a well-received GOP response to President Biden’s prime-time address to a joint session of Congress. And he’s the lead Republican in negotiations with congressional Democrats on a major police reform bill,” Fox News continued.

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Scott has also taken some early trips to Iowa and New Hampshire, which hold the first two contests in the presidential nominating calendar.

This, combined with his massive fundraising haul, has sparked speculation about potential national ambitions.

“The numbers say that Tim Scott has developed a national constituency and has created enthusiastic supporters from coast to coast. There’s no question that he’s someone who excites Republican activists. His recent visit to New Hampshire was very successful and he drew large crowds,” longtime Republican consultant Jim Merrill told Fox News.

Merrill, who’s based in New Hampshire and is a veteran of numerous GOP presidential campaigns, said that the senator’s fundraising figures “tell me that if Tim Scott was a stock, there’d be a lot of people buying his stock right now. People really believe in him and are excited about him.”

Donald Trump has cast a tremendous shadow on the 2024 presidential campaign for other possible Republican nominees and that shadow is set to grow larger.

The 45th President of the United States just rallied in Iowa, generally, an early state for potential candidates to visit as it is one of the first to vote in the primaries.

Sam Nunberg, the property magnate’s first political hire in 2011 when he began thinking about a possible run, said Iowa was crucial to Trump’s victory in 2016.

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“I think he is going to run but even if he doesn’t it’s important for Trump to keep a strong presence in that state because in the Iowa caucus you can organize to victory,” he said.

“And if he doesn’t preempt the other people, they may see a path,” he said.

Mark Meadows, the former White House Chief of Staff under the Trump administration, said in July that the former President and his allies are looking to “move forward in a real way.”

Speaking to Newsmax’s Cortes and Pellegrino, Meadows said that both he and Trump were meeting with “some of our Cabinet members” as recently as that day, but he added that he was not “authorized to speak” on behalf of the former president to divulge too many details about the meeting.

According to Meadows, the meeting would not have happened at all if there were no plans to “move forward in a real way.”

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“We met with several of our Cabinet members tonight. We actually had a follow-up … meeting with some of our Cabinet members. And as we were looking at that, we were looking at what does come next,” Meadows said.

“I’m not authorized to speak on behalf of the president, but I can tell you this, Steve: We wouldn’t be meeting tonight if we weren’t making plans to move forward in a real way, with President Trump at the head of that ticket,” he added.

Although Meadows’ remarks were vague, it does suggest that Trump may have intentions to run for office in 2024 or assume some other position in Republican politics besides acting as the de facto kingmaker for the party.

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