Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy speaks to a crowd about what he would accomplish if he were elected president during a "Commit to Caucus" rally at Lion Bridge Brewing in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Monday, Jan. 15, 2024. (Savannah Blake/The Gazette via AP)
Biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy suspended his bid for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination on Monday and endorsed former President Donald Trump after a disappointing finish in Iowa’s leadoff caucuses.
Ramaswamy, a 38-year-old political novice who sought to replicate Trump’s rise as a bombastic, wealthy outsider, said, “As of this moment we are going to suspend this presidential campaign. There’s no path for me to be the next president absent things that we don’t want to see happen in this country.”
During the campaign, he needled his opponents but praised Trump as “the best president of the 21st century.” He argued, though, that Republicans should opt for “fresh legs” and “take our America First agenda to the next level.”
The approach, including his call for “revolution,” vaulted Ramaswamy into the mix of candidates vying to overtake Trump – or at least become a viable alternative. His decision to drop out, though, becomes the latest confirmation that the former president, even at 77 years old and under multiple criminal indictments, still dominates Republican politics and remains the overwhelming favorite to win the GOP nomination for the third consecutive time.
Ramaswamy’s failure also affirms how difficult it is for any Republican other than Trump to push the bounds of party orthodoxy, as the first-time candidate found little political reward for positions such as his opposition to aid for Israel and Ukraine.
The son of Indian immigrants, Ramaswamy entered politics at the highest level after making hundreds of millions of dollars at the intersection of hedge funds and pharmaceutical research, a career he charted and built while graduating from Harvard University and then Yale Law School. He brought to his campaign the same brash approach he used to coax money from investors even when the drugs he touted never made it to the market.
