While politicians often try to hide their intentions to seek a higher office, it’s almost always extraordinarily easy to predict which candidates are eyeing the Presidency.
As a result, millions of Americans have been eager to see this candidate throw his hat in the GOP ring.
And now, after months of speculation, one of Donald Trump’s top rivals for the Republican Presidential nomination finally entered the race. But it’s not who you think.
The real race for 2024 just began
While most all the focus around the 2024 Republican Presidential Primary has centered on the looming battle between former President Donald Trump and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, the undisputed frontrunners for the Party’s nomination, another Republican is throwing his hat in the ring.
But unlike most every other candidate not named Trump or DeSantis, this Republican may be the Never-Trump establishment’s choice for President.
Late last week, reports surfaced that after months of speculation, Senator Tim Scott (R-SC) had filed paperwork with the Federal Elections Commission to run for President in 2024.
And on Monday night, in front of a packed house of supporters at Charleston Southern University, the first black American to ever serve in both the U.S. House and Senate officially launched his Presidential campaign, giving a speech filled with feel-good platitudes and generalities the RINOs love to banter about.
“We need a President who persuades not just our friends and our base,” Scott told the crowd. “We have to have a 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.”
“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,” the Senator added. “And that’s why I’m announcing today that I am running for President of the United States of America.”
Scott went on to emphasize that “our Party and our nation are standing at a time for choosing,” and that the American people must choose between “victimhood or victory? Grievance or greatness?”
“Here’s a kid that grew up in North Charleston, South Carolina, mired in poverty, in a single parent household,” Scott told Fox News. “To think about one day being the President of the United States just tells me that the evolution of the American soul continues to move toward that more perfect union.”
A formidable opponent the establishment will rally around
Considering the fact that the Real Clear Politics polling average suggests the two GOP frontrunners have secured the support of more than 75% of Republican voters, while Scott’s support sits at less than 2%, it could be easy to dismiss the Senator in the same way most voters have rightly dismissed the idea that former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley, former Vice President Mike Pence, entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, or any other potential Republican candidates, have any chance whatsoever of defeating both Trump and DeSantis.
But it could potentially prove to be a mistake for anyone to underestimate Scott’s candidacy.
For starters, Scott is starting out his 2024 campaign with more than $22 million in his campaign coffers – more than any other Presidential candidate in American history.
Tim Scott enters the race with more cash on hand than any other presidential candidate in U.S. history — $22 million. https://t.co/4Tv26vypvM
— FOX 5 DC (@fox5dc) May 22, 2023
Considering the fact that Trump began the second quarter of the year with less than $14 million on hand, while Haley and Ramaswamy had just $4 and $9.4 million respectively, it’s easy to see how the Senator’s war chest gives him a leg up – especially when he’s just now starting to fundraise off of his Presidential run, while his rivals have been doing so for months.
Furthermore, that $22 million is simply the total Scott’s campaign committee has raised under FEC regulations that cap donation totals at $3,300 per donor – it doesn’t even scratch the surface of what his political action committees (PACs) have raised.
Scott has worked in recent years to establish himself as one of the GOP’s top fundraisers overall by building relationships with the Party’s mega-donors in order to raise significant sums nationwide.
Now the Senator can put those relationships to work for his own Presidential campaign.
With the likes of billionaire Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison, billionaire hedge fund manager Dan Loeb, and billionaire casino magnate Steve Wynn all encouraging him to run for President, the two primary Scott-aligned PACs are also starting out the election cycle with $16 million cash on hand.
Ellison previously donated $30 million to the Senator’s main PAC, Opportunity Matters Fund, in 2022 alone, and reports quickly surfaced after the campaign’s announcement that he is already preparing to potentially double that investment in order to help make Senator Scott the next President.
Needless to say, as he proved by dropping $6 million on an ad campaign before even officially announcing his run, Scott will not lack the funds needed to increase his name ID across the nation and potentially give Trump and DeSantis a run for their money as the establishment looks for a pick who won’t rock the globalist boat like true America First champions.
Of course, when it comes to elections, money isn’t everything – but in American politics in 2023, it’s certainly a major piece of the equation.
Before It’s Banned will keep you up-to-date on any developments to this ongoing story – before it’s banned.
