AMAC Exclusive – By Aaron Flanigan
With all eyes on the Republican debate stage this Wednesday to see for the first time what the candidates are made of, one contender who has shown himself to be sharp and well-spoken and could shine in the spotlight is entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, who in recent weeks has surged to second place in many national polls. Once regarded as a longshot candidate who would remain confined to political obscurity, Ramaswamy has taken the wind out of other candidates’ sails – most notably Florida Governor Ron DeSantis.
So just who is this ambitious 38-year-old, why is he suddenly catching fire, and what does his popularity say about the direction of the Republican Party?
Ramaswamy was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, to Indian immigrant parents. After graduating from Harvard and then Yale Law School, he worked as an investment partner with a hedge fund before founding a biotechnology company, Roivant Sciences, in 2014.
After stepping down from Roivant, Ramaswamy founded Strive Asset Management in 2022, an explicitly anti-ESG investment firm that prioritizes financial returns for shareholders over commitments to left-wing political dogma. In February, he officially announced his candidacy for president as a Republican.
In a race where every other candidate outside of former President Donald Trump has struggled to establish a clear political lane—unsuccessfully attempting to straddle the line between Trump’s brand of populism and establishment GOP orthodoxy—Ramaswamy offers something different. His clear identity as an uncensored voice of the people who can effectively articulate the stakes of the current political moment and offer concrete policy visions has allowed him to authentically connect with voters.
“We’re in the middle of a national identity crisis,” Ramaswamy stated bluntly in his February campaign launch video. “Our nation is hungry for a cause, for purpose, for meaning. The things that used to fill that void—like faith, patriotism, hard work, and family—have disappeared. We now embrace one secular religion after another… to satisfy our deeper need for identity. Yet we cannot even answer the question of what it means to be an American in the year 2023.”
He continued: “We’ve obsessed so much over our diversity and our differences, that we forgot all the ways we’re really just the same—bound by a common set of ideals as Americans.”
Ramaswamy’s no-holds-barred assessment of America’s national decline and positive blueprint for a post-Biden world stands in sharp contrast to many of his primary contenders. And if recent polling is any indication, his strategy is working.
A national primary poll conducted by Kaplan Strategies from August 15 to 16 shows Ramaswamy polling second only to Donald Trump, beating out Ron DeSantis for the first time. That poll was far from an outlier: an Emerson poll fielded August 16-17 shows Ramaswamy tied for second place with 10 percent of the vote, leading Mike Pence, the third place candidate, by seven points. Additionally, according to Smarkets Betting Odds, Ramaswamy’s chances of becoming the Republican nominee have soared by 10 percent since June—a testament to his surge in support this summer.
In another sign of Ramaswamy’s growing popularity, Ron DeSantis’s Never Back Down PAC recently distributed a memo urging the Florida governor to “hammer” him as “fake” during the first primary debate—the latest proof that Ramaswamy poses a far greater threat to his rivals than initially anticipated.
Thus far, much of Ramaswamy’s time in the spotlight has come thanks to his strong presence on digital media. He also regularly appears on corporate media television programs, impressively punching back against left-wing TV personalities and cementing his profile as a fighter who will not hesitate to hold the media’s feet to the fire when necessary.
Ramaswamy’s entrepreneurial background and status as the youngest candidate in the race have also likely been factors in his success. In the words of Politico, he “tends to make favorable impressions wherever he goes. He’s personable and warm backstage, [and] knows how to give a speech and read a room.” Ramaswamy’s energy on the campaign trail was seen in clear view earlier this month at the Iowa State Fair where he went viral for rapping along to Eminem’s song “Lose Yourself.”
Despite Ramaswamy’s rise in the polls, his policy platform has still raised some red flags with rank-and-file primary voters. In June, for instance, he indicated that he would not reinstate Trump’s ban on transgender-identifying individuals serving in the military—a statement that many voters perceived as a capitulation to left-wing gender ideology. He has also been critical of Trump’s protectionist trade policies, has advocated for an increase in legal immigration (a point of view increasingly out of step with the American public), and taken criticism from his fellow Republicans over inconsistencies regarding his stance on aid to Israel.
Ramaswamy also still has a long way to go to have any chance of unseating Donald Trump as the frontrunner. Trump holds a commanding lead of at least 45 points in most national polls, an unprecedented advantage for a candidate who is not an incumbent. Moreover, while Ramaswamy has done well in national polls, he continues to struggle in statewide polls. An NBC News/Des Moines Register poll released earlier this week, for instance, has him at just 4 percent, putting him in seventh place behind Trump (42 percent) DeSantis (19 percent) Tim Scott (9 percent) Nikki Haley (6 percent) Mike Pence (6 percent) and Chris Christie (5 percent).
But even if it remains unlikely that he will ultimately garner enough support to secure the Republican nomination next year, Ramaswamy could also very well emerge as a dominant force in a race for Congress (some have speculated that he will exit the 2024 primary to run for the U.S. Senate in Ohio), a future Republican administration, or the 2028 presidential election.
Regardless of what the future holds for Ramaswamy, however, one thing remains certain: he is not to be underestimated.
Aaron Flanigan is the pen name of a writer in Washington, D.C.
