COLOMBIA, SC (AP) – Former President Donald Trump endorsed US Senator Tim Scott’s candidacy for re-election in 2022 on Tuesday, continuing to make clear his intention to remain a dominant force in Republican Party politics.
Trump issued a statement through his Save America PAC, saying that Scott had his “complete and total endorsement” and praising Scott’s work on behalf of the military, police and veterans.
The only black Republican in the Senate and one of his three black members, Scott has served a term in the US House and has been in the Senate since then Gov. Nikki Haley appointed him in late 2012 to succeed Jim DeMint.
Elected for his first full term in 2016, Scott said the 2022 Senate race would be his last. Scott was mentioned as a potential candidate for the Republican Party’s presidential nomination in 2024, and his name appeared in the results of a poll at last week’s Conservative Political Action Conference.
In the Senate, Scott used to line up with Trump, voting with him almost 91% of the time, according to FiveThirtyEight.
Trump is just coming out of his weekend appearance at CPAC, where he was hailed as a hero back. In his speech, Trump called for Republican Party unity, even as it exacerbated intra-party divisions, attacking fellow Republicans and continuing to repeat false claims about victory in the elections.
“Do you miss me already?” Trump said after taking the stage with music from his old campaign soundtrack and applause from the support crowd.
Prior to Congress’s normally mundane certification of President-elect Joe Biden’s Election College victory on January 6, Scott was among Senate Republicans who spoke out against Trump’s claims that the Senate could have legally disbanded that process, saying that he found “not constitutionally viable means” to do so.
Hours after the deadly attack on the United States Capitol that interrupted certification procedures, Scott proposed a commission to study the 2020 election, suggesting that some electoral changes related to the pandemic resulted in “missteps – intentional or not” that deserve further examination.
On the proposal, Scott’s colleague, South Carolina senator Lindsey Graham, one of Trump’s closest allies in Congress, called it “a bad idea to delay this election”, saying Biden is the “legitimate president of the United States” .
On Twitter, Graham said on Tuesday that he appreciates Trump “having come early and strong in support of my good friend”, calling Scott “one of the most talented people I have ever met”.
Scott, however, took a quieter approach. Instead of commenting directly, his campaign thanked Trump on Twitter and then released a statement saying that Scott was “honored” with the endorsement, pointing to areas of policy in which Scott and the former president line up.
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Meg Kinnard can be contacted at http://twitter.com/MegKinnardAP.