Vivek Ramaswamy drops out of 2024 presidential race, endorses this candidate

Following the release of the early results of the Iowa caucuses on Monday night, Vivek Ramaswamy suspended his 2024 campaign for president.

The results showed former President Donald Trump well in the lead with over 51% of the votes. Trump’s opponents, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and former United Nation ambassador Nikki Haley, trailed behind with 21% and 19% of the votes, respectively.

Ramaswamy, who spent at least $10 million of his own money on his campaign, garnered just under 8% of the votes, which played a big role in his decision to end his presidential run, as the Deseret News reported.

“I think it is true that we did not achieve the surprise that we wanted to deliver tonight,” he said in Des Moines.

In a post on X, formerly known as Twitter, Ramaswamy said his campaign was based on “speaking the TRUTH.”

“The people spoke loud & clear about who they want,” the 38-year-old businessman said, before revealing that he is endorsing Trump for president, vouching to “do everything I can to make sure he is the next U.S. President.”

Related

• Vivek Ramaswamy explains the cause of the Civil War at a rally amid Nikki Haley blowback

• Meet the former Latter-day Saint missionaries helping a Hindu win over evangelicals

In response, Trump thanked Ramaswamy and said it was “a great honor.”

Utah Sen. Mike Lee, a Republican, in a post on X, also showed appreciation for Ramaswamy “for running a good, positive campaign and standing for consistently for constitutionally limited government,” as well as for throwing his support behind Trump.

“It’s not going to be easy to defeat Joe Biden,” Lee said. “We need all hands on deck.”

Ramaswamy said he will appear next to Trump at a campaign event in New Hampshire on Tuesday, nudging DeSantis and Haley to follow his lead.

Ramaswamy has shown support for Trump throughout his bid for president, whether it was a promise to pardon the former president should he be elected, or denouncing the Colorado Supreme Court’s ruling to disqualify Trump for being an “insurrectionist.”

He even went so far as to declare the former president “the best president of the 21st century.” Trump returned the praise, and called Ramaswamy a “very, very, very intelligent person,” according to The Washington Post.

But the script flipped leading up to the final days of the Iowa primary. Trump, in a post on Truth Social Saturday, labeled Ramaswamy a “fraud” and said he is “not MAGA,” which is why voters shouldn’t support him.

“Vivek started his campaign as a great supporter,” the former president said in a post over the weekend. “Unfortunately, now all he does is disguise his support in the form of deceitful campaign tricks. Very sly, but a vote for Vivek is a vote for the ‘other side’ — don’t get duped by this. Vote for ‘TRUMP,’ don’t waste your vote!”

Related

• Vivek Ramaswamy’s strange strategy to win over religious voters

• Meet the former Latter-day Saint missionaries helping a Hindu win over evangelicals

Ramaswamy dismissed Trump’s attacks. In an interview on NewsNation, he linked the verbal attacks to his late “surge” in Iowa after he gained a few notable endorsements.

“I think that his campaign advisers who I think probably are the ones that actually put that out or advised him to put it out,” Ramaswamy said, per The Hill. “And I think that that was probably not the A-team that was working on that right there, is seeing a late surge for us in Iowa.”

He went as far as to say that while Trump was a great leader, Ramaswamy will be the one to further “the American First movement.”

Ramaswamy is the first Hindu to ever run for the Republican presidential nomination, as the Deseret News previously reported. He didn’t shy away from embracing his faith, as he drew comparisons between his religious beliefs and those of Christianity, saying he believes in a God and conservative social values.

“Would I be the best president to spread Christianity through this country? I would not,” Ramaswamy said. “But I also don’t think that’s the job of the U.S. president.”

Despite visiting all 99 counties in Iowa twice, a first for a presidential candidate, he could not win over the Hawkeye State. One of the roadblocks could have been his faith.

Nearly two-thirds of likely Iowa caucusgoers are evangelical Christians and less than 1% are Hindu. In a Deseret News/HarrisX poll from September, one-fourth of evangelical voters said Ramaswamy’s religious affiliation would make them less likely to vote for him.

Related

• Trump wins big in Iowa, as DeSantis and Haley trail behind