Lone Black Republican in U.S. Senate
By Kristina Dixon | Across Black America
South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott announced his run for the Republican presidential nomination Monday morning in North Charleston, S.C.
The senator, who has represented South Carolina in the Senate since 2013, portrays himself as a true conservative with a positive story to tell.
“We need a president who persuades not just our friends and our base,” he told supporters in his hometown. “We have to have compassion for people who don’t agree with us. We have to believe that our ideas are so strong and so powerful and so persuasive that we can actually take it to the highest points in the world and be successful but we also have to be able to take it all the way down to places that today are hopeless and prove that who we are works for all Americans.”
As for his own upbringing, being raised by a single mother, Scott says they found strength in faith and family and a determination to succeed — all things he accused Democrats of working to destroy.
“From the time the sun goes down until the sun comes up, Joe Biden and the radical left are attacking every single rung of the ladder that helped me climb. And that’s why I’m announcing today that I am running for president of the United States of America,” he said.
In his 40-minute announcement speech, Scott highlighted his rise from poverty to prosperity and said that America is not a racist country. Scott is the only Black Republican senator in the U.S. Senate.
In defending the founding fathers of this country, Scott told his audience: “We need to stop canceling our founding fathers and start celebrating them for the geniuses that they were. They weren’t perfect, but they believed that we could become a more perfect union.”
In recent polling Scott ranks well in the pack of current and potential candidates, earning support in the low single digits. In contrast, former President Donald Trump’s support sometimes tops 40 or even 50 percent.
The first caucuses and primaries are still more than eight months away, so candidates looking to gain on Trump have some time. But in his announcement speech, Scott chose not to even mention Trump or any of his other rivals. He has said Americans want to hear from a candidate who expresses a positive and optimistic view of America.
