Republican presidential hopeful drops out of race
Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy has dropped out of the race for the White House after finishing fourth in the first GOP primary of 2024. He has endorsed GOP frontrunner and former President Donald Trump, who won a landslide victory in the Iowa caucuses.
The 38-year-old American entrepreneur of Indian descent, who has been skeptical of US membership in NATO, made the announcement while addressing supporters in Des Moines on Monday, admitting that his campaign “did not achieve the surprise that we wanted to deliver tonight.”
“There’s no path for me to be the next president absent things that we don’t want to see happen in this country,” he said. “As of this moment, we are going to suspend this presidential campaign.”
Ramaswamy signaled that he would support Trump – who he described as the only other “America First candidate,” adding that he had already congratulated him on his victory. “And now going forward, he will have my full endorsement for the presidency.”
Trump secured a convincing victory in the Iowa caucuses, winning 51% of the vote, trailed by Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (21%) and former US Ambassador to the UN and foreign policy hawk Nikki Haley (19%). Ramaswamy finished a distant fourth with only 8% of the vote.
Ramaswamy, who was the youngest Republican vying for the presidential nomination, has drawn a lot of media attention in recent months as he called the US withdrawal from NATO a “reasonable idea” and expressed willingness to “reevaluate US involvement in the UN.” He has also suggested that the January 6 riot at the Capitol, in which Trump supporters attempted to prevent the certification of US President Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 election, was an “inside job” orchestrated by federal agents.
A Politico report earlier this month suggested that while Ramaswamy’s chances of securing the nomination were slim to begin with, he could end up joining the future administration of Donald Trump, who is also known to be a NATO skeptic.
