2024 GOP Presidential Field About to Get Crowded as Tim Scott, Vivek Ramaswamy Mull Campaign Launches

Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC) and entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy are both reportedly considering presidential campaign launches as the 2024 Republican primary field begins to take shape.

Scott “is taking steps to run for president,” the Wall Street Journal congressional reporter Eliza Collins wrote Monday, citing “people familiar with his plans.”

The news comes days ahead of former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley’s expected campaign announcement, which will make her the second candidate officially in the race after former President Donald Trump, who declared his candidacy in November.

Scott, the junior senator from the Palmetto State, is “excited to share his vision of hope and opportunity and hear the American people’s response,” a senior advisor, Jennifer Casper, told the publication.

Scott was highly active on midterm campaign trails throughout the country last year stumping for GOP Senate candidates and is floating a need for unity as a campaign theme, according to Collins. He is set to be in South Carolina – the second GOP primary state in the nation –  on Thursday, where he is expected to deliver remarks at a Black History Month dinner and will be making a presence in Iowa, the first Republican voting state in the nation, in the weeks to come.

Sources told the Journal that one area Scott needs to improve is his name recognition.

Ramaswamy – a New York Times bestselling author who wrote Woke, Inc.: Inside Corporate America’s Social Justice Scam and is the founder of multiple healthcare and technology companies, including Roivant Sciences – is also weighing a run, Politico’s Daniel Lippman reported Monday. He made a stop in Iowa last week, speaking before some of the state’s leaders in the Agriculture industry during a dinner.

Lippman wrote:

…He is exploring a run for president, testing, among other things, whether his warnings about the dangers of “wokeism” and socially-responsible investing — in business vernacular what’s called environmental, social and governance (ESG) investing — has political currency with Republican politicians, business leaders and, yes, farmers.

Ramaswamy has a theory for how this will all go. He wants to pull off what Donald Trump did in 2016: enter the race with an entrepreneurial spirit, unorthodox ideas, and few expectations, and end up developing a major following that will carry him.

Steve Bruere, who is president of Peoples Company, a “farmland transaction and management platform,” hosted the event. Per Lippman, Ramaswamy, an anti-woke and pro-free speech businessman, said:

“We were taught that you satisfy a moral hunger by going to Ben and Jerry’s and ordering a cup of ice cream with some social justice sprinkles on top… But we’ve learned in the last couple of years that you cannot satisfy that moral hunger with fast food. And the good news is I think we’re getting hungry again. And I think there’s an opportunity to fill that hunger with something deeper.”

With Haley expected to launch her campaign on Wednesday and Ramaswamy and Scott posturing to enter the fray, the field could potentially get crowded as other prominent Republicans are mulling runs. Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) has been widely talked about as a possible candidate and has polled as a potential front-runner in countless surveys, with many showing him as the second-strongest candidate behind Trump.

Former Vice President Mike Pence is also mulling a bid, as CBS News noted. He told the outlet last month, “I think we’ve got time,” when speaking about a potential run.

Pence, the author of the book, So Help Me God, will appear in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, on Wednesday to host a rally advocating for parents’ rights, Iowa’s News Now reported. His group, Advancing America Freedom, previously announced it is rolling out “a grassroots campaign to combat the Radical Left’s indoctrination of children in Iowa and to empower Iowa parents to make decisions that are best for their children.”

Another politician considering a bid for the Oval Office is former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who also served as the Central Intelligence Agency director during a period of the Trump administration. Like Pence, Pompeo recently published his own book, Never Give an Inch: Fighting for the America I Love, which had bombshell allegations that Haley attempted to angle her way into the Vice Presidency during the Trump administration, as Breitbart News reported.

During an appearance on Breitbart News Saturday with host Matthew Boyle last month, Pompeo said that he and his family would come to a decision in the months ahead.

“My wife Susan and I, we’re trying to figure our way through this in the coming months, so we’re not far off,” said Pompeo. “We’ll conclude whether this is our time — whether we think this is the place to go serve America as I did as a young lieutenant and then had the privilege to do in Congress and working in the Trump administration.”

John Bolton, who served as America’s United Nations ambassador during the Bush Administration, said in December while appearing on NBC’s Meet the Press Now that he would “absolutely” run for president for the purpose of stopping Trump.

“There’s one thing that would get me to get into the presidential race, which I looked at in prior elections,” he said. “It would be to make it clear to the people of this country that Donald Trump is unacceptable as the Republican nominee.”

Additionally, a few weeks back, Gov. Chris Sununu (R-NH) told ABC News that he was “definitely thinking about” a run for the White House. Last week he established the Live Free or Die committee, “marking a significant step toward laying the foundation for a White House bid in 2024,” as Breitbart News’s Jordan Dixon-Hamilton reported.