OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) has made another highly personal, life-changing announcement just days after publicly endorsing 2024 GOP presidential rival Donald Trump for the party’s nomination.
The former Republican presidential contender from South Carolina has revealed his plans to marry his longtime girlfriend, Mindy Noce, after proposing to her on Kiawah Island, South Carolina, according to Fox News. During an interview with host Trey Gowdy, the contestant himself confirmed the announcement. He described the proposal as a significant moment in his life, comparable to the day he converted to Christianity.
“As a guy who is mostly an introvert and on the quiet side, having to have a conversation about the engagement is a little, you know, uncomfortable in a way, but it’s the most exciting thing I’ll do with my life besides making Jesus my Lord,” Scott said in the Sunday interview.
“I’ve been very patient and prayerful, and I’m really excited and somewhat nervous, and I couldn’t be more thankful for having found a soul mate and someone who shares a lot of the same interests, passions, and goals that I do,” he said.
“Going to the beach and getting on one knee, and asking Mindy to marry me was so much more important than anything else, and I wanted to make sure that that sacred day would not be disturbed by anything political,” Scott told Gowdy, a former U.S. congressman from South Carolina.
The couple first crossed paths during a post-church Bible study group. Noce, a successful property developer in South Carolina, is a mother of three. Scott briefly introduced her to a national audience during the November GOP presidential debate.
“My joke is as soon as I saw her picture, I figured it out. But the truth is, about two weeks into it, I knew there was something very different about her and her faith,” he said. “In our first conversation that went about an hour and a half or two, we ended up deciding to do a Bible study together.”
Just days ago, Scott appeared with Trump at a rally in New Hampshire and publicly endorsed his former rival. Interestingly, he has chosen to back Trump over another GOP primary opponent and his own state’s former governor, Nikki Haley.
“It’s time for us to unite our party so that we make sure that the only target we’re talking about is firing Joe Biden,” Scott emphasized after formally backing the former president at a Trump campaign rally in New Hampshire’s state capital city of Concord on Thursday.
“The best way for us to get rid of Joe Biden as our president is to unite our party now behind Donald Trump,” Scott, who ended his own 2024 presidential campaign in November, added.
Other former GOP candidates have also rallied around the former president.
North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum teamed up with Trump at a rally in Indianola, Iowa, last weekend as he backed Trump. And multi-millionaire biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy endorsed Trump on Monday night, as he suspended his own campaign following a dismal finish in Iowa’s caucuses. Ramaswamy joined Trump at a rally in Atkinson, New Hampshire, the next evening.
As for Haley, one of her supporters, New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu, has backed off his prediction that she would win big just days ahead of his state’s primary.
About a month ago, Sununu predicted that the former South Carolina governor would win the primary in a “landslide” and is now saying that a strong second-place finish behind Republican frontrunner and former President Donald Trump would be good enough, the New Hampshire Journal reported.
His updated position aligns with the prevailing circumstances in the Granite State, the outlet noted, adding that Trump’s substantial lead over the rest of the field in Iowa, by a margin of 30 points, coupled with his consistent double-digit advantage over Haley in the polls, suggests he’ll have a good night come Tuesday.
