Timothy Eugene Scott is an American businessman and politician serving as the junior United States senator from South Carolina since 2013.
Scott worked in financial services before he served on the Charleston County Council from 1995 to 2009. He then served in the South Carolina General Assembly from 2009 to 2011. Afterward, he was a member of the U.S. House of Representatives for South Carolina's 1st congressional district from 2011 to 2013. He was appointed to the Senate by governor Nikki Haley in 2013. He retained his seat after winning a special election in 2014, and was elected to two full terms in 2016 and 2022.
Scott is one of 11 African Americans to have served in the Senate, and the first to have served in both chambers of Congress. He is the seventh African-American elected to the Senate and the fourth from the Republican Party. He is also the first African-American senator from South Carolina, the first African-American senator to be elected from the Southern United States since Reconstruction, and the first African-American Republican to serve in the Senate since Edward Brooke departed in 1979.
On April 12, 2023, Scott formed an exploratory committee to enter the 2024 Republican Party presidential primaries. He filed Federal Election Commission paperwork to run for president on May 19, and formally declared his candidacy three days later.
