Tim Scott failed in his quest to become Donald Trump’s 2024 running mate. Yet, this week, everything is coming up Scott.
The most obvious reason is that the U.S. senator from South Carolina married Mindy Noce on Saturday. After the ceremony, Scott wrote on Instagram, “Mindy, you’ve made me the happiest man alive. I love you.”
Obviously, it’s nice when people find the love of their life. But that’s not the only reason to congratulate the senator. Here are a few more ways that this is shaping up to be the Summer of Scott.
He’s no longer a bachelor.
There is, generally, nothing wrong with being single. But it can cause headaches for a politician. For decades, Scott has been dealing with awkward conversations about his lack of a romantic partner. He contributed to the focus on his love life — or lack thereof — when he declared himself a “proud” 30-year-old virgin back in the ’90s. Naturally, people had follow-up questions when Scott remained single and rarely even mentioned a significant other as he rose up through South Carolina politics, becoming a U.S. congressman and then the first Black senator elected from the South since Reconstruction. Scott’s 2024 presidential campaign led to even more focus on his personal life and spawned think pieces about whether voters would have a problem putting a never-married 57-year-old man in the White House.
Scott’s presidential bid ultimately fizzled, seemingly for reasons that had nothing to do with his personal life (like his lackluster debate performance and various strategic errors). But now he’s free to make his next political move without enduring questions about his not-so-youthful “purity” declaration.
He’s proven the skeptics wrong.
Early in his 2024 presidential run, Scott tried to shut down chatter about his bachelor status by alluding to a girlfriend he would not name. He then opened up to the Washington Post’s Ben Terris about his new love — but basically all he divulged was that his girlfriend was a Christian pickleball enthusiast. Terris’s reporting revealed that even some of Scott’s oldest friends were unaware that he was finally in a relationship, raising suspicions that the senator had invented a lady friend for political purposes.
Scott eventually debuted his girlfriend — Noce, an interior designer, divorced mother of three, and a flesh-and-blood woman — at the third GOP primary debate. Four months later, in January of this year, they got engaged. The circumstances were a bit odd. Scott, who had ended his own campaign months earlier, publicly endorsed Trump on Friday, popped the question on Saturday, and immediately broke the news to the Post. On Sunday, January 21, the paper ran engagement photos supplied by Scott and an interview in which the senator remarked that having “a conversation about the engagement is a little, you know, uncomfortable in a way.”
So why volunteer for this “uncomfortable” interview? Cynics in the press (cough) implied that he was trying to calm GOP donors who were reportedly jittery about a bachelor VP pick by getting married ASAP. This idea gained traction when Scott and Noce announced that they’d marry in early August — a date that wouldn’t conflict with the campaign schedule if Trump tapped Scott to be his running mate.
It’s possible that the couple did pick August 3 because it wouldn’t interfere with the Republican National Convention and would allow Scott to be a married man by Election Day. But even after it was clear that the nuptials would have no impact on the 2024 race, Scott and Noce did not call off or reschedule the wedding. Thus, they have “squashed rumors engagement was political stunt,” as The Sun indelicately put it.
He’s not J.D. Vance.
Scott clearly wanted to be Trump’s running mate. In mid-May, he seemed to confirm he was at the top of the shortlist, teasing a Newsmax reporter, “I hear there’s a debate in July. If you’re the guy moderating, maybe I’ll be talking to you.”
But Scott didn’t get what he wanted — and maybe J.D. Vance didn’t, either. Sure, he could wind up a heartbeat away from the presidency. But at the moment, Vance is taking heat for allegedly betraying his anti-Trump principles (which is true), vilifying childless cat ladies (which is also true, despite what his wife says), and fornicating with a couch (which is not true but very funny).
If Trump had made Scott his running mate, his wedding would be a huge story, and by next weekend he’d probably be back on the campaign trail trying to explain some controversial thing he said in his 20s or cleaning up Trump’s claim that Kamala Harris isn’t Black. Instead, as he told the Post and Courier on Friday, he feels “like a kid in a candy shop” and he and Noce are starting their married life with a honeymoon “out West.” Perhaps Scott won the veepstakes after all.
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