Politics
Rep. Tim Scott is front runner to replace Jim DeMint in Senate
Rep. Tim Scott. PHOTO/Sandra Ecklund/WCIV
The surprising resignation of Sen. Jim DeMint of South Carolina, one of President Obama’s sharpest critics even among Republicans, creates an intriguing possibility: House Republican Tim Scott being appointed to replace him and becoming the only black member of the Senate and first Republican since the 1970s.
CNN is reporting that Scott is DeMint’s top choice as a replacement, although Scott is also rumored to want to run for governor in 2018.
Scott, who represents a district based in Charleston, was elected in the Republican wave of 2010. He has been a very reliable conservative vote in Congress and opponent of President Obama’s agenda. But he has not made the inflammatory statements of the other black Republican elected in 2010, Florida’s Allen West, who was narrowly defeated in November. Scott won re-election with 62 percent of the vote in his heavily-Republican district this year.
Scott would be the first black Republican senator since Edward Brooke of Massachusetts, who left the Senate in 1979.
