Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC) entered the 2024 race with low name recognition and at the back of the pack in presidential polling.
But a six-figure ad blitz in Iowa may be starting to pay dividends for the South Carolina senator.
REPUBLICAN PRIMARY: BIG TENT OR BIG TOP?
The GOP field has ballooned since he entered the race a little more than two weeks ago. A dozen candidates will descend upon Iowa and New Hampshire, the first voting states of the presidential primary, over the coming months.
But unlike most other rivals, Scott joined the race flush with cash.
He’s sought to make good use of a $22 million war chest carried over from his Senate run in the fall. Scott has spent the most of any candidate on advertising in Iowa so far.
Public polling is sparse at this stage of the race — the Iowa caucuses are still months away — yet a new survey released Thursday showed that investment may be providing him some early momentum.
Scott received 5% support among likely Iowa caucusgoers polled from June 5-7, up from 1% a month earlier.
That puts him at a distant third behind former President Donald Trump and his chief rival, Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL), who raked in 39% and 24%, respectively.
But he was the only candidate to show positive movement in the National Research poll.
The survey could spell trouble for former Vice President Mike Pence, who announced his candidacy from Iowa on Wednesday. Both he and Scott have centered their campaigns on their Christian faith and are making early pleas to the evangelical vote in the state.
Yet Scott remains in the low single digits with his rivals close behind him. Both Pence and former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley received 4% support.
Moreover, the margin of error for the poll was 4 percentage points. In national polls, Scott trails both Pence and Haley.
A poll has yet to be taken in New Hampshire since Scott announced his 2024 campaign. In fact, the last survey, from May, is substantially skewed by support for the popular governor of the state, Chris Sununu, who has since decided against a run.
Scott, like the rest of the field, is staking his candidacy on his performance there, seeking to convince GOP donors that his campaign is viable for the long haul.
His pitch has focused on his personal story as a black man who rose from poverty to become a sitting U.S. senator. His first campaign ad, part of a $6 million TV and radio buy in Iowa and New Hampshire, frames his success as a repudiation of what he calls a culture of victimhood on the Left.
He’s also presenting himself as an alternative to Trump, mounting a positive, high-road campaign that stands in contrast to the former president’s own grievance-based politics.
He will have difficulty carving out that lane in a crowded field, however, and current polling suggests voters still want Trump, or at least a version of him.
DeSantis, who has adopted the same combative persona as the former president, is so far the only Republican who could threaten his comeback bid. But even he trails Trump by double digits.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
It remains to be seen how a federal indictment over Trump’s handling of classified documents, revealed Thursday evening, will affect his campaign. His support only rose after he was arraigned in New York on business fraud charges that Republicans have widely denounced as politically motivated.
Scott attacked the Justice Department on Thursday night over the indictment, decrying the “weaponization” of the agency against the former president.
