Sen. Tim Scott Endorses Trump

 Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC) endorsed former President Donald Trump on the campaign trail Friday night in New Hampshire ahead of the primary in the state next week.

“We need a president who will close our southern border today,” Scott told the crowd. “We need Donald Trump. We need a president who will unite our country. We need Donald Trump. We need a president who will protect your Social Security and my mama’s Social Security. We need Donald Trump, who will stop the crime and recklessness in the streets. We need a president who will restore law and order. We need a president who will lower taxes and not raise our taxes.”

“We need a president who understands the American people are sick and tired of being sick and tired,” he continued. “We need a president our foreign adversaries are afraid of and our allies respect. We need a president who doesn’t see black or white.”

Scott’s endorsement of Trump comes about two months after he end his own presidential campaign, during which he made the pitch that he would be able to bring the country together and contrasted that with frontrunner Trump, who he suggested would not be able to win over states like Georgia and Pennsylvania. But after failing to gain enough traction in the polls, the senator suspended his campaign in mid-November. Scott has been among the list of names that some have speculated might be on Trump’s shortlist as a vice presidential pick.

 

The senator’s endorsement of Trump has been perceived as a snub to presidential candidate Nikki Haley, the former governor of South Carolina, who appointed him to the U.S. Senate in 2013 to fill a vacancy.

New Hampshire Governor Chris Sununu, who endorsed Haley ahead of his state’s primary, downplayed the importance of Scott’s endorsement, saying, “If anyone cared about Tim Scott, he’d still be running for president. Nobody cares.” Haley’s campaign has also dismissed the endorsement, a spokesperson portraying it as Trump joining with “Washington insiders.”

The latest polling from New Hampshire shows Haley running second to Trump in the state but performing far better than she did in Iowa, where she finished third, two points behind Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. Trump won Iowa by 30 points, garnering 51% of the vote. The most recent poll out of New Hampshire shows Trump holding about a 17-point lead over Haley.