Tim Scott (born September 19, 1965) is a Republican politician and businessman serving as the senior United States Senator from South Carolina since 2013. He made history as the first African-American senator directly elected in the South, the longest-serving African-American senator in U.S. history, and the first to chair a full Senate committee. Growing up in working-class poverty in Charleston after his parents' divorce, Scott overcame academic struggles and a football-ending car accident, with mentorship from a Chick-fil-A owner, graduating from Charleston Southern University in 1988. After winning a Charleston County Council seat in 1995 as the first Black Republican elected to any office in South Carolina since the 19th century, he moved on to the U.S. House in 2011 and was appointed to the Senate in 2013 by Governor Nikki Haley. He won subsequent elections in 2014, 2016, and 2022, and declared his candidacy for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination in May 2023, though he suspended his campaign in November due to low polling. He now chairs the Senate Banking Committee and the National Republican Senatorial Committee, and became the state's senior senator after Lindsey Graham's death in July 2026.