Donald Trump's resounding victory in the caucus of Iowa, the first step in the primary race, already has its first victim. Entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, fourth in the vote behind Trump, Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley, throws in the towel. Ramaswamy, a tech entrepreneur, has been spending part of his own fortune on the campaign and has tirelessly traveled every corner of Iowa for months. At the moment of truth, however, he has only achieved 7.7% of the votes.
“We have not achieved the surprise that we wanted to give tonight,” he justified. “From this moment on we are going to suspend this presidential campaign. There is no path for me to be the next president in the absence of things that we do not want to happen in this country,” Ramaswamy has said, perhaps in reference to a possible conviction or imprisonment of Trump. In reality, his only chance was for the former president to be removed from the race and it has already been proven that the four charges for 91 alleged crimes do not weigh on him.
Ramaswamy had a moment of prominence in the first debate, when he was the surprise factor. He played the role of a kind of millennial Trumpist who spread hoaxes and conspiracy theories. He tried to be a kind of copy of Trump, but voters preferred the original.
The candidate received devastating attacks from Chris Christie and Nikki Haley, mainly. “You're nothing more than scum,” Haley told him in one of the debates after he mentioned her daughter.
Given that Ramaswamy has shown himself to be an admirer of Trump and has defended his presidency and shared many of his ideas, it is possible that the candidate's withdrawal will further widen Trump's lead in the nomination race. The retired candidate has expressly requested the vote for the former president, whom during the campaign he has insistently referred to as the “best president of the 21st century.” Despite not stopping praising Trump, he said a few days ago that Ramaswamy was a fraud.
Ramaswamy has been more extreme than Trump himself on some issues. He has rejected support for Ukraine and Israel and has aired hoaxes of all kinds in relation to the assault on the Capitol, climate change or the great replacement conspiracy theory. His failure proves how difficult it is for any candidate other than Trump to benefit from unorthodox positions.
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According to AP data, with more than 99% counted, Trump has achieved 51% of the votes, followed by the governor of Florida, Ron DeSantis, with 21.2%, and the former governor of South Carolina, Nikki Haley , with 19.1%. The entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy is fourth, with 7.7% of the votes, while the support for the surviving candidates Ryan Binkley (pastor-businessman-politician) and Asa Hutchinson (former governor of Arkansas) is rather nominal, below the 1%. An advantage like this means almost knocking out his rivals in the first round.
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