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Biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy ended his marketing campaign for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination Monday night time after a disappointing end within the Iowa caucuses.
“I’ll persist with the reality tonight. The primary onerous fact and this was onerous for me, I gotta admit this, however we’ve checked out it each which manner. And I believe it’s true that we didn’t obtain the shock that we needed to ship tonight,” he stated at his marketing campaign’s watch celebration in Des Moines, Iowa.
Ramaswamy then formally endorsed former President Donald Trump, the projected victor of the Iowa caucuses.
“Earlier tonight, I known as Donald Trump to inform him that I congratulate him on his victory. And now going ahead, he could have my full endorsement for the presidency,” he stated.
He stated he plans to journey to New Hampshire to marketing campaign for Trump on Tuesday forward of the state’s main subsequent week.
“Tomorrow we’re seemingly – I’m going to look with Donald Trump at a rally in New Hampshire to put out what I see and what we see for the way forward for the nation,” he stated.
At 38, Ramaswamy was the youngest candidate within the area, and he touted his youth and relative political inexperience as a part of a broader enchantment for a brand new era of management, typically drawing contrasts with older, extra establishment-aligned Republicans.
“America is within the midst of a nationwide id disaster. We starvation for objective at a second when religion, patriotism and onerous work are on the decline,” Ramaswamy wrote in The Wall Avenue Journal asserting his marketing campaign. “The Republican Celebration’s high precedence must be to fill this void with an inspiring nationwide id that dilutes the woke agenda to irrelevance. As an alternative, many high Republicans recite slogans they memorized in 1980 or criticize left-wing tradition with out providing an alternate.”
In photos: Former presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy
Ramaswamy stood out from the remainder of the Republican area for his embrace of Trump at the same time as different rivals sought to weaken the first front-runner. He aligned himself carefully with Trump’s coverage imaginative and prescient, self-identified as part of the “America First motion” and known as Trump “the best president of the twenty first century.” And he forcefully defended the previous president after every of his indictments, pledging to pardon Trump of federal fees if he have been elected to the White Home and calling on different candidates to make the identical dedication.
He launched his marketing campaign in February 2023 as a little-known former pharmaceutical govt whose books “Woke, Inc.” and “Nation of Victims” had given him a rising profile in right-wing media. His marketing campaign announcement was rapidly adopted by an look on Tucker Carlson’s former present on Fox Information, an early indication of his technique to introduce himself to voters by means of a heavy weight-reduction plan of appearances and interviews with conservative media figures.
Ramaswamy, who’s Hindu and the son of Indian immigrants, was raised in Cincinnati, Ohio. He graduated from Harvard College with a level in biology earlier than incomes a legislation diploma from Yale College. He then based a biotechnology agency, Roivant Sciences, earlier than serving to begin Attempt Asset Administration, an funding administration agency that earned a fame for refusing to think about “woke” ideology in funding choices, together with environmental, social and company governance elements – positions he often pointed to on the path.
A frequent critic of the two-party political system, Ramaswamy typically stated he was “utilizing” the Republican Celebration to advance his personal agenda. Over the course of his marketing campaign, he leveled sharp criticisms at GOP leaders, most notably Republican Nationwide Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel, whom he known as on to resign.
“We’ve develop into a celebration of losers,” Ramaswamy stated of underperforming Republican candidates throughout a debate in November. “Since Ronna McDaniel took over as chairwoman of the RNC in 2017, we have now misplaced 2018, 2020, 2022 — no pink wave, that by no means got here. We bought trounced final night time in 2023. And I believe that we have now to have accountability in our celebration.”
Ramaswamy started to achieve traction in polls over the summer time as Republicans realized extra in regards to the Ohio businessman, aided by his knack for garnering consideration; he memorably carried out a karaoke model of Eminem’s “Lose Your self” on the Iowa State Honest after an occasion hosted by Gov. Kim Reynolds. As he grew in prominence, Ramaswamy grew to become a focus for assaults from main opponents who zeroed in on his blustery help for Trump and anti-establishment rhetoric. These contrasts have been on stark show on the Republican debates, the place, in Trump’s absence, Ramaswamy served as a proxy for the previous president’s isolationist international coverage views.
These assaults proved to shift public perceptions round Ramaswamy’s candidacy, with polls exhibiting him stagnating after his summer time rise. A Des Moines Register/NBC Information/Mediacom Iowa ballot launched in November confirmed that 37% of seemingly Republican caucusgoers considered him unfavorably, a 17-point enhance from the identical ballot in August. A CNN New Hampshire ballot launched in November discovered that 30% of seemingly Republican main voters stated they might by no means help Ramaswamy for the nomination, 6 factors larger than the ballot’s September discovering.
The assaults that appeared to have an effect on Ramaswamy’s marketing campaign essentially the most got here from former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, a fellow Indian American. She repeatedly skewered his international coverage views, notably a proposal for Ukraine to cede territory to Russia in a bid to finish the conflict there. His name to cut back US support to Israel as a part of a broader retreat from the worldwide stage additionally met resistance throughout the celebration.
That criticism put the usually boisterous Ramaswamy on the again foot.
All through the marketing campaign, he shifted or amended his acknowledged international coverage positions. He initially advised that, as president, he would let China probably annex Taiwan as soon as the US was not depending on the self-governing island for its semiconductor provide. Afterward, although, he reversed course and talked up a continuation of the present Taiwan coverage even after the US established “semiconductor independence.”
Ramaswamy typically sought to border his lack of international coverage expertise as a optimistic, arguing that the standard knowledge on international affairs has led the US within the flawed path.
“I grew up into watching the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan,” Ramaswamy stated in a international coverage speech final 12 months. “I fear that we’re paving the trail to larger-scale battle that repeats these errors, not on the similar scale, however at a bigger scale than ever earlier than.”
This story has been up to date with extra reporting.
CNN’s Gregory Krieg and Kaitlan Collins contributed to this story.