Entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy is suspending his presidential campaign after a likely fourth-place finish in the Iowa Republican caucuses.
"We’ve looked at it every which way, and I think it is true, that we did not acheive the surpsie that we wanted to deliver tonight," Ramaswamy told a crowd of supporters Monday night in Iowa. "As of this moment, we are going to suspend this presidential campaign … there is no path for me to be the next president absent things that we don’t want to see happen in this country."
Spectrum News confirmed his plans shortly before his Monday night press conference.
Ramaswamy then announced that he has called Donald Trump to congratulate him on his victory and declare his support for the former president.
"Now, going foward, he will have my full endorsement for the presidency," Ramaswamy said.
Ramaswamy, a 38-year-old son of Indian immigrants, declared his canddiacy on the Tucker Carlson Show in 2023 as a relative unknown multimillionaire. He stormed into debates as a disruptive presence that seemingly pulled pages from Trump’s playbook, publicly embracing fringe theories, elevating conspiracies and declaring himself an "unapolagetic American nationalist" as part of a campaign of what he called "hard truths."
His national polling only edged above 10% once, according to a FiveThirtyEight average, and has steadily declined since, ending at 4.1% on Monday.
As of the most recent count, Ramaswamy won 7.7 percent of caucus votes tallied in Iowa Monday night, finishing in fourth behind Trump, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley.
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.