WEST DES MOINES, Iowa — Rising in the Hawkeye State polls, U.S. Senator Tim Scott did the Iowa State Fair Tuesday, rediscovering the sweet joys of funnel cake and sitting down with Governor Kim Reynolds for a “Fair-Side Chat.”
The top-tier contestant for the Republican Party presidential nomination and proud South Carolinian also made a confession that could cause him some heartburn in the Palmetto State.
“I’m a South Carolinian. I’m a Southern boy. I know barbecue, and I know ribs. Nobody tell anybody this okay, but I just had the most amazing ribs I might have ever had,” Scott confided to Reynolds and a healthy crowd of fairgoers. “But don’t tell anyone in South Carolina.”
Reynolds’ Fair-Side Chats have been described as a safe space for the crowded field of Republican presidential candidates to make their case to Iowans from across the state, plenty of whom will participate in Iowa’s first-in-the-nation presidential caucuses on January 15.
All but one candidate has signed up, the exception being former President Donald Trump, who’s had a bit of a one-sided feud going with the governor. Trump, who popped into the fair on Saturday and wowed the crowds, has accused Reynolds of showing favoritism to Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who is running second in most primary polls. Reynolds has said she will remain neutral and endorse no candidate through the lead-up to the caucuses. Trump did tell fairgoers that he likes the popular Republican governor, whom, he asserts, he helped win the election.
Scott, as he is wont to do, talked about the success he has found in life thanks to the blessings of America. The only black Republican in the Senate, Scott stressed education as “magic” in changing lives, as it did for him. But where children are educated should be a matter of parental choice, the senator insisted.
“I believe in public schools. I also believe in competition,” said Scott, a vocal proponent of school choice. “I want competition to improve our public schools… Give parents the choice and their kids get a better chance.”
On foreign policy and national security, Scott noted his recent trip to the southwest border. He talked about the fentanyl precursors flowing from communist China to Mexico, where they are being assembled by drug cartels to push the poison through illegal immigrants pouring into the United States. The devastation in fentanyl’s wake is hitting every community, thanks in large part to President Joe Biden’s disastrous border policies, Scott said.
“It’s not the strength of [China] President Xi [Jinping], it’s the weakness of President Joe Biden,” the presidential candidate said to applause.
Asked by an Iowa voter how he would take on the fentanyl crisis as president, Scott said it’s a matter of common sense: finish the wall, crush the cartels, and invest in border security. He said he would also reinstate the Remain in Mexico policy and Title 42, the COVID-era restriction on immigration.
“The current national health emergency we know ain’t COVID, it’s fentanyl,” Scott said.
Reynolds asked the presidential contender what is the most important action he’s taken in public office. Scott pointed to his role as one of the three main authors of the sweeping tax cuts of 2017, often cited as a leading catalyst of the U.S. economic boom in recent years. The senator said Republicans have been too quiet on promoting that fact.
“We cut taxes for every group of people,” he said.
Scott has enjoyed a surging position in Iowa polls in recent weeks, thanks in no small part to a flood of campaign ads in Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina.
A recent poll conducted by J.L Partners for Great Britain’s Daily Mail showed Scott with 11 percent support from likely Republican Iowa caucus voters, just six points behind DeSantis, although trailing Trump by 32 percentage points.
“Alongside Trump’s ascendancy, the story of this poll is ‘Scottmentum.’ Scott has jumped from 1 percent in April to 11 percent now,” said James Johnson, co-founder of the Republican polling firm.
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M.D. Kittle is the National Political Editor for The Star News Network.
Photo “Kim Reynolds and Tim Scott” by Tim Scott.
