Ohio Entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy Drops Bid For 2024 GOP Presidential Nomination

Businessman Vivek Ramaswamy (right) appears beside former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley at a Republican presidential debate on Nov. 8, 2023.
Businessman Vivek Ramaswamy (proper) seems beside former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley at a Republican presidential debate on Nov. 8, 2023.
Jonathan Newton/The Washington Pos through Getty Images

Ohio entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, who poured hundreds of thousands of {dollars} of his personal cash into his presidential marketing campaign however barely broke single digits in polling, has dropped out of the 2024 race for the Republican nomination.

In the Iowa caucuses, the primary contest within the GOP major race, Ramaswamy pulled in lower than 8% of the vote, coming in fourth behind former President Donald Trump, the winner, as Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley fought it out for second place.

Ramaswamy has by no means held elected workplace however however introduced a bid for the presidency in February. He has been campaigning aggressively ever since, a lot of the time in a tour bus wrapped with a large picture of himself.

Although he appealed to some voters who preferred his brash model and judgmental tone, he shortly earned a fame as essentially the most annoying candidate within the race after the celebration’s debates started in August.

Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie mocked him as a “ChatGPT” candidate at that occasion. During the second debate, former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley eviscerated his positions on the Russia-Ukraine battle, with Ramaswamy proposing to chop U.S. help to Kyiv and provides Russian chief Vladimir Putin territory that he launched an invasion to grab.

“Every time I hear you, I feel a little bit dumber,” Haley instructed him throughout a heated trade over TikTok.

At the third debate, Ramaswamy invited Republican National Committee Chair Ronna McDaniel to affix the stage and resign due to the celebration’s poor displaying within the off-year elections — which Ramaswamy attributed to her reasonably than to the celebration’s de facto chief, coup-attempting former President Donald Trump.

Indeed, of all of the candidates working, Ramaswamy was persistently essentially the most deferential to Trump — regardless that Trump, who faces varied prison expenses, by no means bothered to indicate up for any of the debates. He known as Trump the “best president of the 21st century” and never solely promised to pardon Trump if elected, however demanded that the others working make the identical pledge.

Ramaswamy is a near-billionaire from investments and virtually actually might have funded his marketing campaign till the top of primaries. However, his polling peaked within the late summer time and early autumn, when it started trending downward.

Support HuffPost