Vivek Ramaswamy, the youthful entrepreneur who briefly threatened to disrupt the Republican primaries, has suspended his campaign for president, his team said on Monday after disappointing results in the Iowa caucuses.
“As of this moment we are going to suspend this presidential campaign,” Ramaswamy said. “There’s no path for me to be the next president absent things that we don’t want to see happen in this country.”
Ramaswamy’s withdrawal from the race comes after the 38-year-old failed to build on a strong start to his campaign in a state where he spent significant money and time hoping to gain traction.
Virtually unknown before he announced his run for president, Ramaswamy rose to third place in national polls over the summer, amid a slew of appearances on cable news.
His popularity, including in the early voting states of Iowa and New Hampshire declined since then, as Donald Trump maintained his convincing lead, and voters gravitated toward candidates with more political experience.
Addressing supporters in Iowa on Monday evening, Ramaswamy endorsed Trump. “As I’ve said since the beginning, there are two America first candidates in this race and I called Donald Trump to tell him that.
“I congratulated him on his victory and now going forward he will have my full endorsement for the presidency, and I think we’re gonna do the right thing for this country.”
Ramaswamy is scheduled to appear at a Trump campaign event in New Hampshire on Tuesday.
Ramaswamy, who made millions of dollars in a career in the biotech industry, became one of the most visible candidates through media appearances and a relentless engagement in culture wars.
As the youngest person running for the Republican nomination, and as a son of Indian immigrants, he stood out in a field traditionally populated by older white men. In spite of being the only millennial in the GOP race, he often sought to present himself even further to the right than some of his older Republican rivals.
Over the course of his campaign Ramaswamy claimed that the “climate change agenda” was a “hoax”, and said he would increase fossil fuel production, while he also supported a six-week, state-mandated ban on abortion.
He was a hardliner on immigration, and said he would “universally” deport all undocumented immigrants – of whom there are believed to be 10 million living in the US – while promising to admit “darn close to zero” refugees.
He also suggested sending the US military into Mexico to tackle drug cartels, and said that as president he would cut aid to Ukraine and encourage the country to cede much of east Ukraine to Russia.
During his campaign, Ramaswamy became increasingly critical of the Republican party as he sought to stress the differences between himself and candidates who had a longer association with the GOP.
“We’ve become a party of losers at the end of the day,” Ramaswamy said during the third Republican primary debate in November.
He blamed Ronna McDaniel, the chair of the GOP, for the party losing, or underperforming, in elections since 2017.
Yet throughout his campaign, Ramaswamy was far less inclined to criticize Trump, who has been the de facto head of the Republican party across those electoral defeats.
Ramaswamy declared that Trump was the best president of the 21st century, and pledged to pardon him if he were elected.
