Tim Scott’s path from appointment to Senate elections

How Scott reached the Senate

Tim Scott serves as a Republican U.S. senator from South Carolina, a role he first took in 2013 after being appointed. Because his service began by appointment, his first year in office did not begin with an election victory. He later sought the seat in 2014 and won a special election, giving him his first electoral victory for the Senate.

Scott returned to voters in 2016 and was reelected. He again won reelection in 2022. His record in office therefore has four distinct points: the 2013 appointment, the 2014 special-election win, the 2016 reelection and the 2022 reelection. That sequence separates the start of his Senate service from the point when voters first elected him.

Scott’s historic distinction

Scott is the first African American elected to the U.S. Senate from a Southern state. That distinction concerns his election rather than his initial appointment: He began serving in 2013 and then won the special election the following year. His victories in 2016 and 2022 were reelections to the same chamber from South Carolina.

Both 2013 and 2014 are therefore central to Scott’s Senate biography. The first marks when he entered office through an appointment; the second marks when he won the office in a vote. The 2016 and 2022 results mark the later elections in which South Carolina voters returned him to the Senate.