That’d be Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina.
Forgot Scott is even running? You’d be forgiven.
After all, he’s unapologetically everything Trump isn’t. Relentlessly positive, rhetorically spare, more Mister Rogers than MAGA warrior.
He tonight runs the risk of sounding to the untrained Republican ear like a folk singer serenading death metal junkies. And that’s precisely what makes Scott dangerous.
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While Scott will certainly aim to attract as many prospective voters as possible tonight, his siren song isn’t presently aimed at the body politic.
Rather, he’s precision-tuning it for the likes of billionaire Estée Lauder cosmetics fortune heir Ron Lauder. Metal industry mogul Andy Sabin. Wall Street wolf Frank Dunlevy. Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison.
These very, very rich conservatives are aghast at the former president’s wanton disregard for most anything resembling pre-Trump GOP orthodoxy, even as many Republican voters remain unbothered by Trump’s four sets of felony charges and scheduled arrest Thursday in Georgia.
Scott’s proverbial path to victory remained littered with obstacles, ranging from his intrinsic un-Trumpiness to the very real question of whether today’s Republican voters will all fully embrace a Black standard-bearer.
But in Scott, notable megadonors have found four attractive factors.
Scott himself can underscore them tonight in the presence of his opponents and bolstering his patient, long-game strategy of climbing into the race’s upper tier:
Trajectory
Politically, Trump has effectively ignored Scott, reserving his bane and bile for DeSantis — to significant effect.
Not long ago considered a Trump-buster, DeSantis has universally underwhelmed. He’s trailing Trump by nearly 40 percentage points in some recent national polls. He limps into tonight’s debate amid multiple campaign “reboots” and an unmitigated downward slide to the point where political novice Vivek Ramaswamy, a media-friendly businessman who’s gone full 9/11 truther of late, is threatening to overtake him in both state-based and national surveys.
The only throats DeSantis seems to be “slitting” lately are those of his own campaign.
Scott, meanwhile, has slowly and quietly broken from the political peloton of a dozen-plus GOP political candidates to post ascendant showings in early primary states.
In Iowa, for example, Trump and DeSantis are watching their numbers go in the wrong direction while Scott has risen into the mid-teens with five months to go, according to recent polls from Echelon Insights and the Trafalgar Group.
In New Hampshire, mid-August polls by the same two firms place Scott — now in fifth position — within striking distance of second, behind a leading, but slipping Trump.
Scott also happens to be the sitting junior U.S. senator for South Carolina, giving him a massive homefield advantage in an early primary state that — just ask Joe Biden — stands to change the fortunes of a presidential candidate about as much as any.
Policy
Draconian border enforcement. Superpower military spending. Deregulation for all. An approach to public education that any of the Moms for Liberty could love.
The Human Rights Campaign even awarded him a big, fat “zero” on its most recent equality scorecard.
Behind Scott’s signature smile is a hardcore conservative with — love it or loathe it — a clear, uncompromising policy vision for America, at par with any other Republican running.
Trump, in contrast, has never burdened himself with the bindings of consistency or coherence. Upon his 2020 presidential nomination, the Republican National Convention didn’t even bother to pass a party platform. “Performance art” is how former Trump national security adviser John Bolton described the former president’s governing philosophy.
“Donald Trump doesn’t think in policy terms,” Bolton declared in December.
But most conservative megadonors tend to like predictability when it comes to policy — particularly policy that works for their personal and economic interests, not against them.
It’s a driving reason behind why some of the GOP’s most prominent givers, such as Robert Mercer, have straight-up dumped Trump. Others, such as billionaire Charles Koch’s network, is aiming to actively work against Trump.
In this respect, Scott gives the giving class something more than an “empty vessel” to transport their hopes.
Biden
Many independents and nearly all registered Democrats will never vote for Trump because of his perceived lawlessness, boorishness, self-dealing and anti-Democratic behavior.
This explains how Trump, although still wildly popular among his core supporters, faces tremendous trouble in a 2024 general election scenario, even against a weakened incumbent president in Biden with his own very real popularity problems.
Fifty-three percent of Americans said they would definitely not support Trump in the 2024 general election if he’s the GOP nominee, and another 11 percent said they probably wouldn’t support him, according to an Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll released last week. Bleak stuff for Republican hopes of regaining the White House.
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Politics aside, Scott’s ethical bona fides are pristine. His personal poverty-to-power story is compelling, even American dreamy.
He’s a Republican who could conceivably stand across from Biden in a general election and — with conviction and believability — say that he represents both a departure from years of impeachments and indictments and an insurrection and what so many Republicans have come to consider the insidious era of “Biden crime family” shenanigans.
In states such as Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Nevada, Arizona, Virginia, New Hampshire and Georgia, where the 2024 presidential race will likely be won or lost by close margins, the votes of the swingiest of swing-state voters contain incredible value.
Trump won’t likely deliver them.
Scott could.
Money
You don’t typically get wealthy and stay wealthy without some shrewdness.
And Scott’s campaign has been plenty shrewd with money.
When Scott entered the race earlier this year, he already had $22 million worth of surplus Senate campaign cash in reserve, which he legally injected directly into his presidential bid.
He averaged about $1 million a week, raised directly to his campaign, during his first six weeks running.
And he’s spending a lot of — in rather secretive fashion — on a huge advertising campaign in Iowa and New Hampshire.
As for those megadonors, many have been rushing to fund a super PAC — a political committee that may raise and spend unlimited amounts of money to support a candidate so long as it doesn’t directly coordinate efforts — that’s boosting Scott.
Called Trust in the Mission PAC, or TIM PAC, it’s already raised and spent millions on Scott’s presidential play, and Politico reports that it’s planning a $40 million pro-Scott ad campaign for the autumn.
Oh, and Scott was just the beneficiary of an exclusive fundraiser deep within the Hamptons, the official playground for New York City business executives.
Money alone won’t win elections — see: Bush, Jeb.
But not enough presidential campaign money all but guarantees failure, and Scott has already proven — unlike many of his Republican presidential opponents — that he doesn’t have that problem as the 2024 race, post-debate, begins a new phase.
