Former President Donald Trump’s campaign announced Tuesday that Sen. Lindsey Graham and Gov. Henry McMaster will join Trump on Jan. 28 when the Republican makes his first public appearance in his 2024 White House race.
(THE POST)
Trump, 76, has hinted at a run in 2024 for more than a year and formally announced his run for president in a prime-time speech at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida in November 2022.
The two well-known South Carolina Republicans will attend an event to be held on January 28 at the Columbia State Capitol building, where the former president will unveil his campaign leadership team, according to Tuesday’s announcement.
A person familiar with the matter who spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity said the event will also include members of South Carolina’s congressional delegation, as well as state lawmakers.
Trump has not hit the campaign trail since he officially announced his run for the presidency on November 15, 2022. Instead, he has made occasional appearances to guests and invitees at his Mar-a-Lago estate.
The event comes at a time when two other South Carolina Republicans – former Governor Nikki Haley and Senator Tim Scott – are both considered potential contenders for the Republican nomination.
Haley, who turned 51 on January 20, said about a week after Trump announced his bid for the presidency in mid-November that she was considering running for president in 2024, going back on a promise she made in 2021 that she would not run if Trump will run.
”A lot of people have asked if I’m going to run for president now that the midterm elections are over, I’ll look at it seriously and I’ll have more to say soon“, she said during an appearance at the Republican Jewish Coalition meeting.
Haley was the United States ambassador to the United Nations while Trump was in office
Scott, who was recently re-elected to what he says will be his last term in the Senate, has made visits to other early voting states and launched a political action committee that could become a tool for a presidential campaign.
In 2016, when South Carolina was the third state behind Iowa and New Hampshire in early voting, Trump’s statewide victory there helped cement his status as the party’s front-runner.