On Monday, Politico’s Playbook detailed the growing perception among rival Republican presidential primary campaigns that Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC) is rising in the race to become former President Donald Trump’s chief rival for the 2024 nomination, and that as a result, he can expect closer scrutiny.

“In recent days, super PACs associated with DeSantis and Nikki Haley have singled out Scott for criticism . Operatives in multiple campaigns, we’re told, are beefing up their oppo files on the senator, and some briefed Playbook in recent days about the likely lines of attack.”

The opposition research items shared with Politico by unnamed rival campaigns are a strange slew of the conspicuously nonscandalous, understandable, and ancient. For instance, Scott’s rivals think it was somehow scandalous that he worked with Democrats on criminal justice reform following the killing of George Floyd — even though he spiked the negotiations because their proposals were too radical. This line of attack is a head-scratcher since it would be difficult to produce clearer proof that Scott was unwilling to cooperate with the “defund the police” movement.

They would also have GOP voters believe it was scandalous that he worked to secure a presidential pardon for his cousin in 2020. His cousin, Otis Gordon, was convicted on a nonviolent drug charge in 1991, for which he served a total of six years in prison. He has since become a community leader, steering young men away from trouble and toward Jesus through his work as the pastor at Life Changers International Ministries in North Charleston.

Gordon has also worked on Scott’s previous campaigns as an advanced security staffer. He even led a prayer session at the U.S. Capitol following the 2015 shooting at Mother Emanuel Church in Charleston. The idea of this being a scandal is preposterous, particularly in comparison with the truly heinous scandals that currently plague our politics. If anything, the episode reinforces what voters love about Scott to begin with: that he believes in redemption and reconciliation and is committed to bringing everyone into the full embrace of the American dream.

But the Politico oppo-dump saved its weakest sauce for last: an out-of-context and easily explicable quote from a 1995 interview — that's right, 1995 — with the Post and Courier, when Scott was county councilman:

“The Republican Party, by and large, has been a racist organization and still to this day exists as a racist organization to a large extent.”

Out of context, this sounds like something one would expect to hear from the mouth of Ibram X. Kendi. But let’s take a look at that sentence in the context of the original quote:

"What makes me a turncoat in some people's eyes is I'm a part of a system that has kept blacks out purposefully. The Republican Party, by and large, has been a racist organization and still to this day exists as a racist organization to a large extent. However, up until the '40s or '50s, Democrats kept blacks out completely. Being a Republican shouldn't mean being a racist. I don't think it should be an oxymoron for a black to be a Republican. It should mean that you are pro-business, pro-family, and that you are anti-tax."

Of course, the unnamed rival campaigns, which Politico dubiously described as “Scott’s critics,” hope GOP voters don’t realize that, within the context of the quote, not to mention within the larger interview, Scott is clearly describing the way black people perceived the Republican Party in 1995, not the way he perceived it.

If anything, the article reveals a remarkable consistency in Scott’s character and worldview throughout the decades. Even then, it is clear he was a Christian, a hopeless optimist, and a uniter. Based on this portrait of Scott the councilman, it is patently absurd to suggest he has ever been motivated by resentment. The article even recounts a time in which Scott saved a woman’s life on a rafting trip by tossing himself into the water after her.

If this is the best oppo-research they’ve got, a couple of “own goals” and an out-of-context quote from the first Clinton administration, they're in trouble. That these candidates felt compelled to share it now, six months before the Iowa caucuses, signals that their internal polling matches what we’ve all seen for the past six weeks: a consistent, steady rise in Scott’s standing in key states while their numbers stagnate.

The more the public sees Scott, the more they like him. Given the size of his war chest going forward , it’s clear that donors feel the same way.

The other campaigns hoping to emerge as the alternative to Trump appear shaken by Scott’s early success. And they probably should be.

Peter Laffin is a contributor at the Washington Examiner and the founder of Crush the College Essay. His work has also appeared in RealClearPolitics, the Catholic Thing, the National Catholic Register, and the American Spectator.