Entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy announced Monday night that he is suspending his presidential campaign after a lackluster showing in the Iowa caucuses.
In a speech announcing his exit from the race, Ramaswamy endorsed former president Donald Trump, who was projected to have won the caucuses by a strong margin, according to the Associated Press and other media outlets.
With an estimated 95 percent of votes counted, Trump was winning with 51 percent of the vote, followed by Florida governor Ron DeSantis in second at 21.2 percent and former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley in third with 19.1 percent. Ramaswamy was in a distant fourth at 7.7 percent.
“There’s no path for me to be the next president, absent things that we don’t want to see happen in this country,” Ramaswamy told his supporters. “And I think that I am very worried for our country. I think we are skating on thin ice as a nation.”
Ramaswamy, a billionaire who had spent millions of dollars of his own money on his campaign, had campaigned heavily in the Hawkeye State, having set a goal of completing the “Full Grassley” tour of Iowa’s 99 counties twice.
On the campaign trail, he attracted attention from a far-right subset of the Republican base for his heterodox opinions on a variety of issues — and his ardent defenses of Trump.
That Ramaswamy quickly endorsed Trump upon exiting the race comes as little surprise. He had at times defended Trump so aggressively he has seemed more like a campaign surrogate for the former president than a presidential candidate himself.
He took a number of positions that earned him attention both good and bad, including when he suggested that Taiwan could be protected by placing an AR-15 in the hands of every Taiwanese family, or that the U.S. government hasn’t told us the truth about the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. (Ramaswamy later backtracked on the 9/11 comments in a post on X: “Do I believe our government has been completely forthright about 9/11? No. Al-Qaeda clearly planned and executed the attacks, but we have never fully addressed who knew what in the Saudi government about it. We *can* handle the TRUTH.”)
He vowed to shut down government agencies, including the FBI and Department of Education and called for a return to meritocracy in U.S. society.
He pitched himself as a younger “America First” candidate who could advance Trump’s policies without some of the baggage weighing him down.
He told his supporters not to “waste” their votes on the former president, suggesting those in power would not “let him anywhere near the White House.”
While Trump had repeatedly criticized other presidential contenders, including DeSantis and Haley, Ramaswamy had largely flown under Trump’s radar — until just three days before the Iowa caucuses.
“Vivek started his campaign as a great supporter, ‘the best President in generations,’ etc. Unfortunately now all he does is disguise his support in the form of deceitful campaign tricks,” Trump wrote on Truth Social after Ramaswamy called him “wounded.”
Ramaswamy’s constant presence on the campaign trail made for several viral moments, including an exchange he had with a “pansexual” activist who confronted him at the Iowa State Fair. Ramaswamy engaged in a conversation with the activist, inviting her to share her own opinions, and ultimately said that he believes “we live in a country where free adults should be free to dress how they want, behave how they want, and that’s fine — but you don’t oppress, you don’t become oppressive by foisting that on others, and that especially includes kids because kids aren’t the same as adults.” The activist thanked Ramaswamy for his response and he thanked her for her “civility.”
At the height of Ramaswamy’s brief burst of momentum, it was nearly impossible to log onto social media without seeing a clip of the political newcomer on the campaign trail or on cable news, including when he went viral for rapping Eminem’s Lose Yourself at the conclusion of his “fair-side chat” with Iowa governor Kim Reynolds.
As Ramaswamy ended his campaign on Monday evening, the DeSantis campaign affirmed the Florida governor’s commitment to staying in the race.
“They threw everything at Ron DeSantis,” a senior campaign official told Fox. “They couldn’t kill him. He is not only still standing, but he’s now earned his ticket out of Iowa. This is going to be a long battle ahead, but that is what this campaign is built for. The stakes are too high for this nation and we will not back down.”