Republican Senator and 2024 presidential candidate Tim Scott of South Carolina, suggested at a New Hampshire campaign stop Thursday that recent headlines concerning his relationship status were the result of his opponents planting stories, NBC News reports.

That status has piqued GOP interest, especially after Axios ran a story last week that suggested some conservative Republican donors were concerned about him being unmarried. Someone decided to ask Scott about the story as he visited Lago’s Ice Cream Thursday, while accompanied by New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu, who is also a Republican.

“People plant stories that have conversations to distract from our rise in the polls, to distract from our size of our audience,” Scott responded. “What we’ve seen is that poll after poll says that the voters don’t care, but it seems like opponents do care, and so media coverage that opponents plant — it’s OK. Good news is we just keep fighting the good fight.”

Scott didn’t refer to any specific presidential rival in his answer.

Scott entered public office in 1995 as a member of the Charleston, South Carolina, City Council, and has never dated (publicly anyway) since this time, and this fact has distinguished him from many colleagues and political opponents.

You may remember that Sen. Cory Booker (D-New Jersey) also faced the same questions when he ran for president in 2020. Apparently, the idea of an unmarried president gets Republicans all worried. However, actress Rosario Dawson said at that time that she and the senator were dating, and apparently that quelled concerns.

NBC reports that James Buchanan was the only president who never married, and while Grover Cleveland was a bachelor as a candidate, he married after being elected president, per the White House Historical Association.

Scott suggested during an interview with NBC after launching his campaign in May that he was actively dating.

“There’s always time for a great relationship with a wonderful woman, and I thank God that that is happening,” he said at the time.

Frankly, I fail to see why Republicans are so worried about this. Donald Trump was married and look what he did to them and the country. Or maybe they are afraid Scott is gay and he’ll turn into the Republican Pete Buttigieg. We certainly know many top Republicans, like Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, and Georgia Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Green are afraid of LGBTQ+ people.

Who knows?