Republican presidential candidate Tim Scott announced late Sunday that he was dropping out of the 2024 race, about two months before the start of voting in Iowa\u2019s leadoff caucuses. The South Carolina senator made the surprise announcement on \u201cSunday Night in America\u201d with Trey Gowdy. The news was so abrupt that one campaign worker told The Associated Press that campaign staff found out Scott was dropping out by watching the show. The worker was not authorised to discuss the internal deliberations publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.<\/p>\n
The news comes as Scott, 58, continued to struggle in the polls and just days after the third Republican primary debate. The only Black Republican senator, Scott entered the race in May with more cash than any other Republican candidate but couldn\u2019t find a lane in a field dominated by former President Donald Trump. \u201cI love America more today than I did on May 22,\u201d Scott said Sunday night. \u201cBut when I go back to Iowa, it will not be as a presidential candidate. I am suspending my campaign. I think the voters who are the most remarkable people on the planet have been really clear that they\u2019re telling me, Not now, Tim.'\u201d He added: \u201cAnd so I\u2019m going to respect the voters, and I\u2019m going to hold on and keep working really hard and look forward to another opportunity.\u201d He said he wouldn\u2019t be making an endorsement of his remaining Republican rivals.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe voters are really smart,\u201d Scott said. \u201cThe best way for me to be helpful is to not weigh in on who they should endorse.\u201d He also appeared to rule out serving as vice president, saying the No. 2 slot \u201chas never been on my to-do list for this campaign, and it\u2019s certainly not there now.\u201d Scott, a deeply religious former insurance broker, made his grandfather\u2019s work in the cotton fields of the Deep South a bedrock of his political identity and of his presidential campaign. But he also refused to frame his own life story around the country\u2019s racial inequities, insisting that those who disagree with his views on the issue are trying to \u201cweaponise race to divide us\u201d, and that \u201cthe truth of my life disproves their lies\u201d.<\/p>\n
He sought to focus on hopeful themes and avoid divisive language to distinguish himself from the grievance-based politics favoured by rivals including Trump and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. DeSantis responded to Scott\u2019s announced departure by commending him as a \u201cstrong conservative with bold ideas about how to get our country back on track. \u201cI respect his courage to run this campaign and thank him for his service to America and the US Senate,\u201d he wrote on social media.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Republican presidential candidate Tim Scott announced late Sunday that he was dropping out of the 2024 race, about two months\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":28,"featured_media":10922,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[168,3144,3142,3143,295,469],"class_list":["post-10921","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","tag-donald-trump","tag-florida-gov-ron-desantis","tag-senator-tim-scott","tag-south-carolina","tag-us-2024-elections","tag-us-president-joe-biden"],"reading_time":"3 min read","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10921","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/28"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10921"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10921\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10922"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10921"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10921"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10921"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}