The second GOP presidential debate should be the end of the road for several of the non-entities on the stage. Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC) may be one of those, and it was clear early on that he knew this debate would be the last chance to save his campaign.
Scott clearly tried to inject more emotion into his answers, starting from the opening question. When other candidates were asked questions, you could regularly hear Scott interjecting to try and get more time. At one point, Scott asked if the moderators could even see him. It was a clear, and almost certainly intentional, juxtaposition from his first debate performance, where Scott allowed himself to disappear in the second half.
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It also reeked of desperation, for good reason. Scott had temporarily received some hype ahead of the first debate as the supposed alternate to Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) in challenging former President Donald Trump. He even attacked DeSantis using liberal talking points straight from Vice President Kamala Harris (which he did again in this debate). But his disappearing act in the first debate erased whatever momentum (real or imagined) that Scott had.
Looking at Scott’s standing now, the situation is bleak. In the RealClearPolitics national polling average, Scott sits in sixth place with 2.8%. He’s in fifth place in Iowa (6.8%) and sixth in New Hampshire (4.8%). And in South Carolina, his home state and the one he would have to rely on to get back into the race, Scott is battling for third place. Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley has doubled his support in the Palmetto State in the Fox Business and Washington Post/Monmouth University polls released in September, which gives some context to his last-ditch attack on Haley over United Nations curtains.
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Scott is currently still on a trajectory to make the next debate, as is everyone but Gov. Doug Burgum (R-ND), given the still-too-low 4% polling threshold. But this debate felt like Scott emptying the tank.
He threw everything at the wall and scrapped for every minute of speaking time that he could, but it felt like nothing landed. Scott is running on fumes with four months before the race even heats up, and he may be joining the also-rans like Burgum sooner than later.