Tim Scott backs new super PAC push aimed at Black voters

A Super PAC aligned with Sen. Tim Scott is launching a $14 million-plus campaign aimed at Black and Hispanic voters ahead of the November election.

The Great Opportunity PAC, led by longtime Scott aide Jennifer DeCasper, says it sees an opportunity to win not just the 2024 presidential election, but also ensure control of both the Senate and the House, by consolidating recent polling gains with Black voters, especially men.

“From economics to the border to crime, there’s a lot of reasons why the shift is becoming just so blatantly obvious that it’s now undeniable that there is something amiss, and it’s real,” Scott told a small group of reporters at a roundtable this week. “I think frankly, it’s not just racial, but it’s going to manifest itself in a racial shift that we haven’t seen in probably three decades into politics, and that’s because working class Americans are banding together, being fused together, by the issues that they’re confronting on a daily basis, and those issues are more pronounced in the African American community.”

In a memo sent Thursday to interested parties, DeCasper wrote that the PAC has “a unique opportunity to expand the Republican political coalition and be the difference between whether we win the White House, House, and Senate.” The group has been in touch with the RNC about its plan, which includes courting “other working-class racial minorities” as well.

The PAC plans to “run a full scale, 360 degree communications and voter contact plan targeting swing and low propensity Black and brown voters.” The over $14 million budget will include various events and media appearances by lawmakers, as well as digital marketing, direct mail and targeted paid advertising, and canvassing, the memo added.

“In short, how Black Men and other working-class racial minorities vote could decide this election and their votes are up for grabs,” according to the memo. “If Trump increases his margin among non-college-educated voters by another 2 points in 2024, and his vote margin among nonwhite voters increased by only 3 points, he’d win five additional states, bringing him to a 297-241 victory in the Electoral College.”

Both of the presidential campaigns have made Black and Latino voter persuasion and turnout a priority this cycle, and the competition for support in both communities looks fiercer than prior Trump races. The Trump campaign announced a new executive director of Black coalitions earlier this week, while the Biden campaign launched a “Black Voters for Biden-Harris” initiative.

Scott’s addition to the effort comes as he’s in the running for a potential vice presidential slot — the PAC launch offers a preview of how he might look on the ticket taking a lead role in messaging and events.

At the roundtable, Scott notably told reporters he believes he’s the right messenger for this topic, saying that he’s performed better with Black voters in South Carolina compared with the average Republican while also winning “blue counties where no Republicans are winning at all.”

Democratic pollster Cornell Belcher argued back in March that a big focus among Black Americans is “how they feel about racism and discrimination on the rise — and they point to Donald Trump and what he’s done.” Belcher remained confident that “Black and brown voters… are not rushing to embrace Trump or the derelict political party that foisted him on the nation” because of this, according to a Bloomberg opinion piece.

“Donald Trump is running his campaign the way he’s lived his life: not giving a damn about Black people or our communities,” Biden-Harris senior spokeswoman Sarafina Chitika said in a statement. “Trump entered public life by falsely accusing five black men of murder and political life trying to delegitimize the first Black president as the architect of birtherism. It’s why the first thing he did after taking over the RNC was shut down its minority outreach centers, and it’s why he’s now trotting out backbenchers and C-listers in a last-ditch effort to defend his racist agenda. President Biden is on the campaign trail showing up — himself — to earn, and not ask for, Black Americans’ support. That is what leadership looks like.”

• Hispanic leaders across the country have warned Democrats that Biden is facing difficulties with the base, Semafor reported back in January.
• “Even a modest racial realignment would provide the margin of victory for Republicans in November,” Republican pollster Patrick Ruffini wrote in the Wall Street Journal in April.