Scott, Tim, 1965-

Timothy Eugene Scott (born September 19, 1965) is an American politician and businessman serving as the junior United States Senator for South Carolina since 2013. A Republican, Scott was appointed to the U.S. Senate by Governor Nikki Haley in 2013. He retained his seat after winning a special election in 2014 and was elected to a full term in 2016.

A graduate of Charleston Southern University, Scott worked as a financial adviser and insurance agent. In 1995, he won a special election to a seat on the Charleston County Council, serving until 2009. From 2009 to 2011, Scott served one term in the South Carolina General Assembly. In 2010, Scott was elected to the United States House of Representatives for South Carolina's 1st congressional district, serving from 2011 to 2013. On December 17, 2012, South Carolina governor Nikki Haley announced she would appoint Scott to replace retiring Senator Jim DeMint, who had previously announced that he would retire from the Senate to become the President of The Heritage Foundation. Scott began serving as Senator on January 2, 2013. He was elected in 2014 to fill the remainder of DeMint's term and to a full six-year term in 2016.

Scott has been one of eleven African-Americans to have served in the U.S. Senate, and the first to serve in both chambers of Congress. Scott is the seventh African-American to have been elected to the Senate and the fourth from the Republican Party. He is the first African-American senator from South Carolina, the first African-American senator to be elected from the southern United States since 1881 (four years after the end of the Reconstruction era), and the first African-American Republican to serve in the U.S. Senate since Edward Brooke departed in 1979.