As Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC) took the stage at the annual Faith and Freedom Coalition’s fall banquet, the South Carolina senator and presidential hopeful was first faced with a personal question: Does he have a special lady in his life?
“Yes,” he said with a laugh. “If you haven’t read about her yet — sure, why not? It is one of the more asked questions recently. I do. I’m dating a lovely Christian girl.”
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Scott pivoted the question into his platform stance on family values, pointing to his background of growing up in poverty in a single-parent household. The South Carolina senator expressed his excitement about his relationship, which has garnered national headlines over the last week, and how it has shaped his views on marriage and family.
“I understand that devastation when a family breaks up,” he said. “I had to live with the consequences of a father who was not there. I made a commitment to make sure that never happened in my life.”
The rumors swirling around Scott’s personal life have become more persistent over the last few months as some top donors reportedly became concerned the South Carolina senator was running for president as an unmarried candidate. Scott has only briefly mentioned his girlfriend in previous interviews, but the candidate has never revealed her name.
Scott has also pushed back on the idea that being single would somehow hinder his performance as president, arguing that being unmarried has actually increased his productivity in some ways.
“I probably have more time, more energy, and more latitude to do the job,” he told Axios in May. “Of course, we have no idea if that’s true. But we also don’t know that it’s not.”
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Scott’s comments came during the fall banquet for the Iowa Faith and Freedom Coalition, an annual event where Republican candidates seek to court evangelical voters in the key battleground state.
Several GOP candidates were present for the event, including Scott, Gov. DeSantis (R-FL), Nikki Haley, former Vice President Mike Pence, Vivek Ramaswamy, former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, and former Rep. Will Hurd. Notably absent was former President Donald Trump.
