Tim Scott is the top Black Republican in the GOP presidential primary. Here’s how he discusses race

By Thomas Beaumont, The Independent

Tim Scott seldom specifically brings up race in Iowa. Nor does the Republican presidential candidate have to.

He is often the only Black person at his campaign events in the state. The South Carolina senator introduces himself as the product of early-life mentors who taught him not to be bitter.

When race comes up, he often says the United States is not fundamentally racist.

“We don’t have Black poverty or white poverty. We have poverty,” he told an all-white audience Thursday in Oskaloosa after being asked about race. He earlier had spoken about his poor Southern upbringing and his late grandfather, born into Jim Crow-era South Carolina.

[…]

Scott, the only Black GOP presidential candidate campaigning aggressively in the early-voting state, is betting that his upbeat message of personal responsibility, wrapped in the Christian faith he comfortably cites, is a good fit for Iowa Republicans who might split from former President Donald Trump. So far, Scott and others in the White House race remain far behind Trump, and the senator did not achieve a breakout moment during the first GOP presidential debate.

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The GOP has used tactics to suppress the Black vote in Wisconsin.

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