Biotech executive Vivek Ramaswamy dropped his presidential bid after he came out fourth at the Iowa Caucuses on Monday night. He announced his decision with his wife Apporva and one of his sons beside him at his caucus night event where he admitted that his results that night were disappointing.
Vivek Ramaswamy ends presidential bid following Iowa caucuses https://t.co/Hzk5qkoUfV
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“Now this is a campaign founded on speaking the truth. Not just when it’s easy, but when it’s hard…And so I will stick to the truth tonight. The first hard truth and this was hard for me, I gotta admit this, but we’ve looked at it every which way. And I think it is true that we did not achieve the surprise that we wanted to deliver tonight… As of this moment, we are going to suspend this presidential campaign,” he stated.
He later went on to congratulate former President Donald Trump for his clear victory as well as endorse him, saying, “Earlier tonight, I called Donald Trump to tell him that I congratulate him on his victory. And now going forward, he will have my full endorsement for the presidency and I think we’re going to do the right thing for this country.”
Per The Firstpost, the anti-woke entrepreneur shared plans to join Trump in campaigning in New Hampshire ahead of the state’s primary next week.
Ramaswamy had 7.7% support in the caucus, trailing behind former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley who scored 19% support, a little behind Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ 21.3%. Trump had achieved a clear win with 51% of the vote.
The disappointing support he received in Iowa does not indicate a lack of effort as Ramaswamy reportedly had more campaign events than other candidates in Iowa. His campaign went through all of Iowa’s 99 counties up to two times, per his team.
Ramaswamy, the youngest candidate in the GOP field at 38 years old, joined the race in February, 2022 with an announcement on The Wall Street Journal that read, “America is in the midst of a national identity crisis. We hunger for purpose at a moment when faith, patriotism and hard work are on the decline. The Republican Party’s top priority should be to fill this void with an inspiring national identity that dilutes the woke agenda to irrelevance. Instead, many top Republicans recite slogans they memorized in 1980 or criticize left-wing culture without offering an alternative.”
Even as a political newcomer, Ramaswamy lasted longer in the race than some big-name Republican politicians, including former Vice President Mike Pence, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and Sen Tim Scott (R-SC).
The young political outsider’s campaign was marked with support for Trump, a different path from the majority of the candidates who publicly attacked the GOP frontrunner at one point or another. Consistently calling Trump “the greatest president of the 21st century,” Ramaswamy publicly defended the former president amid his indictments and efforts to remove him from state primary ballots.
With his foot out of the race, Ramaswamy’s long term plans are not clear yet. However, there are beliefs that this is not the end of him in conservative politics, as there are speculations that he might land a spot in Trump’s cabinet should the GOP frontrunner win the election or even be his pick for vice president.