When he announced his candidacy for president in February, Vivek Ramaswamy didn’t garner a lot of notice.
Ramaswamy, a multimillionaire 37-year-old who first acquired his fortune as a biotechnology entrepreneur and then as a hedge fund employee, had no political experience. Even though he started out as a “anti-woke” warrior, few Republican voters were familiar with the term.
But things are altering. Ramaswamy adopted a strategy that has made him ubiquitous in the Republican presidential primary. He has covered the early-state campaign circuit as well as both conservative and mainstream media.
That tactic appears to be effective.
Ramaswamy was in third position overall in the primary field according to the FiveThirtyEight polling tally on Monday, although he was still some distance behind Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who is also well behind former President Donald Trump. Recent national surveys have revealed Ramaswamy’s rise.
Don’t count the candidate among those who are surprised by the polls shift.
He said in an interview with NBC News that “maybe it happened a tad earlier than we expected.” But when we first started this race, I thought I was vying to succeed Barack Obama as the next sitting president of the United States and to spark a resurgence in the country.
He continued, “We’re just getting warmed up.”
In conversations with NBC News on the campaign trail for months, voters have regularly mentioned Ramaswamy as a candidate they wanted to learn much about or were very interested in — even if it wasn’t to be their eventual president.
A supporter of Trump from Pittsburgh named Madison Kirshner remarked, “I believe Vivek has an excellent shot — he is an underdog, yet he is highly intelligent,” during the conference of the right-wing organization Turning Point Action this month. “I enjoy hearing him talk. He has a fantastic chance, in my opinion, and would serve Trump well as his vice president.
Although a large portion of Ramaswamy’s messaging focuses on attacking left-wing social policy ideas and decrying identity politics, respondents in Iowa and New Hampshire who showed a desire for a non-white Republican millennial to rise in the party found his identification to be appealing.
Ramaswamy could be seen as the Republican counterpart to Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, who himself emerged from little recognition as an Ivy League-educated small-town the mayor in the 2020 Democratic elementary field before withdrawing and endorsing President Joe Biden. Add in a communications strategy that includes speaking to any the outlet across the spectrum and engaging as much media as his campaign can handle.
After the spring kickoff of the Faith and Freedom Coalition earlier this year, Iowan conservative activist Lynn Proudfoot observed, “Vivek was a pleasant surprise.” He is a young, ethnic Christian who believes in the Bible. just everything else that I believe would be appealing to a variety of our people. He is a smart man. And I absolutely want to learn more about him and keep tabs on him.
Ramaswamy, who claims to have met the requirements to participate in the first presidential debate, has already promised to pardon Trump if he wins, produced a list of potential Supreme Court nominees, and laid out his intentions to abolish the FBI and Education Department. He gained notoriety for a recent encounter with an anti-abortion rights protester at one of his events, and he launched a fundraising plan that raised eyebrows by offering donors a share of the money they generate for him of 10%.
Ramaswamy’s current situation isn’t all roses and sunshine, either. In the important early states, his polling results are a little less remarkable. Despite raising $7.74 million in the past quarter, only $5 million came from the candidate, leaving the rest behind opponents like Trump, DeSantis, Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.), former U.S. Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley, and others.
Furthermore, the young candidate is still not viewed as a serious danger by some opponents.
He’s not a real contender, said a member of a rival campaign who requested anonymity in order to speak openly about the situation. The foundation of his campaign is Twitter. He always is everything to everyone. We hardly ever give him any thought. And we won’t interact with him at any time.
As it stands, Ramaswamy’s campaign is perceived by some as a quest for higher prominence inside the party rather than a run for the presidency, such as a position in the Cabinet or a more lucrative position as a commentator. However, the candidate is adamant that his only motivation for running is to win.
Ramaswamy admitted, “I don’t fare well in a No. 2 position. “I became a leader in order to get where I am. The Republican Party is full of talented individuals, as well as many others who may excel in Cabinet positions or other positions. I’m not in this for that reason. It’s to prevail.
Sen. Marco Rubio’s 2016 presidential campaign manager, Terry Sullivan, claimed that Ramaswamy is the next in a long line of long shots “who catch lightning in a bottle in a presidential race via powerful messaging and great personalities.”
“The question is whether they can make that into a successful campaign. The conventional response is “no.” But the man has a strong message,” he continued. However, the truth is that you have to first go out and win somewhere. Second, despite what you may think of Ron DeSantis, Vivek is not subject to the same level of scrutiny as DeSantis.
Rivals assert that Ramaswamy, who they concur has profited from minimal time under the spotlight, may soon see a shift in that.
He won’t withstand examination, according to an operator with a second campaign who requested anonymity in order to speak openly about the situation. And he merits some investigation.
Ramaswamy’s ability to come across as genuine on the campaign trail has been credited in large part, according to a Trump campaign official, “because he hasn’t had to take a position on anything before.”
The candidate has caught the former president’s attention as “a really good speaker,” this individual continued, adding that it’s simple to be genuine when they aren’t pointing out the disparities between what you said X number of times previously.
Ramaswamy disputed the notion that he hasn’t been the target of more intensive scrutiny, claiming that he has been eager to communicate with media outlets from all perspectives on a variety of topics. GOP candidates, according to him, should interact with the media more.
“I think that facing scrutiny is going to be a lot tougher from candidates that have been hiding from it, instead of from candidates like me, that have been publicly embracing 360-degree conversation with people who disagree with us,” he said.
Ramaswamy has started to get some more critical press in recent months. Semafor recently revealed that the investment company he formed to combat the widely derided ESG (environmental, social, and governance) investing rules is now lowering its “anti-woke” rhetoric in an effort to win over more investors. Ramaswamy resigned from his position as CEO to run for president.
And even though Ramaswamy recently stated to conservative commentator Tucker Carlson that “pervasive censorship” was the reason for the Capitol riot, ABC News last week highlighted his vehement condemnation of Trump’s actions regarding the attack on the Capitol on January 6, 2021.
Ramaswamy insisted that his response was not contradictory, pointing out that the tweet criticizing Trump was in response to a response to an opinion piece he wrote for the Wall Street Journal in which he expressed concern that further “suppression of dissent” by tech companies might result in violent outbursts worse than the “disgraceful” riot.
And I made the point that I’m not endorsing Trump’s actions, he continued. Actually, I think my decisions would have been extremely different from his. However, I continue to believe that he was not the reason for what occurred on January 6.
Although he has recently begun to put more distance between himself and his primary challenger, Ramaswamy stands out on his campaign tour for his defense of Trump, at times tightly hugging and applauding the man he wants to lead the Republican Party.
Ramaswamy’s ability to maintain his momentum or stall out will be put to the test during the first presidential debate next month, as it will be for many of the candidates vying to surpass Trump at the top of the primary field. Ramaswamy, though, is unconcerned about whether or not Trump personally will attend. He compared his expected absence to a sports team receiving a bye in the playoffs and said that he actually doesn’t expect him to.
It doesn’t really matter to me whether he attends the first debate, according to Ramaswamy. “I believe he need to take part in debates at some point in this process. … Whether or whether he turns up, I’ll be looking forward to being unrestrained on that debate stage.
For the time being, Ramaswamy says to anticipate more policy announcements from his campaign in the upcoming weeks, similar to the recent presentation of his overhaul of administration plan in New Hampshire. Additionally, he claims that in recent weeks, he has been able to develop “a greater sense of [what] this campaign is actually about.”
Sen. Scott Webster of Iowa, one of Ramaswamy’s famous early supporters, switched from supporting DeSantis in part because to DeSantis’ ongoing legal dispute with Disney, which unnerved Webster. The Republican from Iowa argued that Ramaswamy should be given a chance by voters and authorities.
“I am aware that when people first see him and you’re polling at 1 or 2%, they think, ‘Ah, he’s running for this [or that]’. However, he’s presently at 10%,” said Webster. When will they ever take a step back and think, “Holy cow, he’s got a chance?”