Politics

He made his personal story a central narrative of his campaign, often speaking about growing up in poverty in South Carolina raised by a single mother and using those experiences to counter Democratic arguments on a wide range of issues, from criminal justice to education to economic policy.

Scott campaign officials often touted his war chest to explain his path to the nomination, arguing they’d have the resources to stay in the race through the South Carolina primary while other candidates would face pressure to drop out.

In response, the Scott campaign pivoted its strategy to a single-minded focus on Iowa, shifting staff and TV ad reservations into the state and significantly increasing his visits.

At the second Republican primary debate in California, Scott grabbed headlines when he outlined in stark terms his belief that the country has transcended the history of slavery and Jim Crow-era segregation, while also excoriating anti-poverty programs created in the 1960s.

What was hard to survive was [President Lyndon] Johnson’s Great Society, where they decided to … take the Black father out of the household to get a check in the mail, and you can now measure that in unemployment, in crime, in devastation,” Scott said during the debate.

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