Tim Scott returns to Senate as GOP colleagues grapple with Trump’s primary lead

Sen. Tim Scott’s (R-SC) withdrawal from the 2024 GOP presidential race comes as elected Republicans reckon with the increasing likelihood that former President Donald Trump will be the party’s nominee.

Scott announced his surprise decision to suspend his campaign on Sunday evening, a move most on his team did not know was coming ahead of time. His departure from the field leaves five candidates left in the race: Trump, former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, and Gov. Doug Burgum (R-ND).

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Despite Trump’s sustained dominance in primary polls, especially since being hit with four sets of felony charges, the majority of elected Republicans have opted against supporting his bid for the nomination.

Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) told the Washington Examiner on Monday that he was “disappointed” about the news of Scott’s withdrawal from the race. Grassley, who said he has been closely following the campaign in his home state, expressed surprise at the decision.

“I thought he was doing very well,” Grassley said of Scott. “I was sorry to hear that because I thought he would be a good nominee for us. I thought that he would show diversification within the Republican Party, and that would not only be good for the country, it’d be good for our political party. I’m just disappointed.”

Slightly more than half of the 222 House Republicans have endorsed Trump’s bid to return to the White House, but only 12 of the 49 GOP senators have done the same. Most Senate Republicans have said they won’t support Trump in the primary, with a few in that group even endorsing his 2024 challengers.

“I think that the window is closing for candidates that are struggling either with fundraising, which Tim Scott was not, or with the ability to break through,” Sen. Cynthia Lummis (R-WY) told the Washington Examiner of her assessment of the race, adding that she predicted “one or maybe two more” candidates would drop out before Super Tuesday.

Sen. Mike Rounds (R-SD), who had endorsed Scott’s 2024 bid, said when asked by the Washington Examiner on Monday about the state of the primary that “Republicans simply are not in a position where they’re changing their votes at this stage of the game.”

The South Dakota senator had pushed back on the idea in recent weeks that the primary results were set in stone, saying just last Wednesday that he was hoping “Tim Scott pulls it out for a number of us.”

Asked on Monday if the window was closing for Trump’s challengers to break through, Rounds replied, “Republican voters have not seen the need to make that major switch right now. They still think it’s months away from decision time. … So I think Republicans will make the right choice by the time it comes around to getting a candidate.”

The Senate GOP conference has many centrist and establishment Republicans with penchants for bipartisanship. Several of Trump’s GOP skeptics were able to develop decent working relationships with the former president while in office.

Trump’s refusal to accept his 2020 election loss, and the Jan. 6 Capitol riot that ensued, left his standing with most Senate Republicans in near disrepair. Republicans went on to blame Trump for the party’s incumbents losing runoff races in Georgia, handing Democrats control of the Senate.

The former president’s GOP detractors grew more critical after Republicans underperformed in the 2022 midterm elections, only retaking the House by a slim margin and failing to regain Senate control.

Those same senators now face an uncomfortable reality: Trump is the clear front-runner in the Republican primary field and is performing ahead of President Joe Biden in some general election polls.

“Some will come around reluctantly, some of us will come around enthusiastically, and some may never get there,” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) told the Washington Examiner last week of how his wary GOP colleagues would handle the former president becoming the party’s standard-bearer once again.

Sen. Mike Braun (R-IN), who is leaving the Senate to run for governor, said that the onus will be on those skeptical GOP senators to mend fences with Trump if he’s reelected next year, something he predicted would be an uphill climb.

“I think that’s going to be complicated because I know this one thing: He’s got a pretty good memory of who’s wanted to help and who’s been an antagonist. I don’t know if that’s good or bad, but I think that’ll be an issue,” he told the Washington Examiner on Wednesday.

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One of those Republicans, speaking on condition of anonymity, predicted that Trump would be incentivized to work with people he doesn’t like in order to be effective.

“Everyone who assumes the role of president wants to be remembered for genuine achievements. And the reality through our system of checks and balances is that in order to have achievements that are sustainable, you have to actually work with lawmakers,” the senator said.

David Sivak contributed to this report.