Tim Scott touts conservative, religious values in Iowa stops

INDEPENDENCE — South Carolina U.S. Sen. Tim Scott delivered an optimistic message of hope, painting a bright picture of the Republican Party’s values during a Thursday campaign swing through northeast Iowa.

Scott toured Legacy Manufacturing in Marion, where he held a roundtable discussion with company leaders and workers about alleviating supply chain disruptions, taming inflation, growing the economy and reducing the federal deficit, before heading to a Pizza Ranch in Independence where he greeted and delivered remarks of a crowd of about 50 Iowa voters, followed by a town hall in Decorah.

The 2024 Republican presidential candidate's campaign last week announced moves to “go all-in on Iowa,” shifting staff and advertising money in a bid to boost his struggling campaign less than three months out from the first-in-the-nation GOP caucus that kick off the presidential nominating contest.

A new Des Moines Register/NBC News/Mediacom Iowa Poll released Monday shows Scott in fourth with 7 percent support, falling far behind former President Donald Trump, who led the field with 43 percent.

Faith focus

“We believe that by being committed to Iowa that we will have a stronger than expected performance,” Scott told The Gazette. “We believe that is the key to momentum, and bringing the momentum here, I believe, leads to momentum in New Hampshire and allows us to be successful in South Carolina and then on to Super Tuesday.”

Scott's campaign, in a statement, said it sees “an opportunity and wide-open evangelical lane to win the Iowa Republican caucus.”

“We believe that a message that is consistently conservative, that is faith-filled, actually resonates here,” Scott said, noting Christian evangelicals made up over two-thirds of Republican caucusgoers in 2016.

Former Vice President Mike Pence, whose evangelical Christian values were central to his campaign, dropped his bid for the Republican presidential nomination on Saturday after struggling to raise money and gain traction in the polls.

Scott, asked whether that and recent polling gives him pause or concern moving forward with his campaign in Iowa, said he feels the best thing he can do is “continue to be an optimistic, positive messenger with a backbone” to serve as a contrast to the grievance-based politics of some of his opponents.

Is he viable?

Scott’s faith and hardscrabble roots — a Black man raised by a single mother who worked 16-hour days as a nurse’s assistant — have become a bedrock of his political identity and a focus of his campaign.

Scott maintains high favorability ratings among likely Republican caucusgoers, with 61 percent saying they view him favorably in the latest Iowa Poll.

But several have said in interviews with The Gazette over the last three months that while they like his personal story, conservative values and message, they question whether he has a viable path to the White House as Trump continues to dominate the race for the 2024 GOP nomination and fellow South Carolinian and former U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley has seen her support swell in the state.

Many say they’re looking for a fighter, someone who is aggressive who can be an effective alternative to Trump and beat President Joe Biden in the general election.

“Having grown up in a tough neighborhood where friends were shot, buried or incarcerated, being tough is something I have,” Scott said. “ … When you look at the field that’s left today, I think Nikki’s a little too moderate for the party, and I think you see the Never Trumpers rallying around her. There’s a ceiling for that, in my perspective, and Ron (DeSantis) is heading in the wrong direction consistently. That creates an opportunity for our optimistic, positive message to continue to breakthrough.”

‘Build, don’t borrow’

Scott, both in Marion and Independence, called for more personal accountability and criticized progressive Democrats for feeding “this drug of victimhood and the narcotic of despair.”

Scott, the only Black Republican senator and the first Black Republican elected to Congress from the Deep South since Reconstruction, rejects the notion that the country is inherently racist and uses his life story to pitch a vision of America where merit and achievement can allow anyone to be successful.

He touts serving as the lead author of 2017 Republican tax cuts, which created Opportunity Zones, which give businesses tax breaks for investing in economically distressed areas like the one where he grew up.

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In Marion, Scott touted his economic plan, titled “Build. Don’t Borrow." The plan features a slate of proposals meant to reduce federal spending, taxes and the overall size of the federal government, and focuses on cutting taxes for individuals and businesses to grow the economy.

The plan would permanently extend the individual income tax cuts passed as part of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, rescind the Inflation Reduction Act and rein in nondefense discretionary spending to pre-pandemic levels.

Scott pointed to the Laffer curve, which displays the relationship between tax rates and tax revenue collected by governments and is often used by conservatives to illustrate the argument that cutting tax rates can result in increased total tax revenue.

Responding to concerns as to whether the predicted bump in revenue would be enough to cover the loss created by the tax cuts themselves, Scott argued that the problem was overspending.

In Independence, he spoke of a need to maximize education opportunities by promoting policies of increasing school choice for parents and students.

He called Republican Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds a “powerhouse” for championing and signing into law legislation this year that eventually will allow all Iowa parents to use taxpayer-funded Education Savings Accounts to send their children to private K-12 schools.

“It’s a power of hope embedded in conservative policies,” Scott said.

Comments: (319) 398-8499; tom.barton@thegazette.com