Vivek Ramaswamy barreled into politics as a flame-thrower prepared to offend nearly anybody. He declared America was in a “cold cultural civil war,” denied the existence of white supremacists, and referred to considered one of his rivals as “corrupt.”
Now, he says he desires to be “conservative without being combative.”
Ramaswamy is rebranding himself each for the Ohio governor’s race, the place he hopes to succeed the conservative however mild-mannered Gov. Mike DeWine, and to determine a transparent lane for himself in the ongoing Republican Party debate over racial and political identification.
He took the stage at Turning Point USA’s AmericaFest this month to criticize Nick Fuentes and the so-called “groyper right.” He’s denounced what he referred to as the “rising prevalence of the blood-and-soil view” inside his occasion.
Having as soon as rejected a well-known line from Ronald Reagan by declaring it was “not morning in America,” Ramaswamy cited the 40th president earlier than the Turning Point viewers.
“Ronald Reagan understood this,” he mentioned. “He famously said, you know, you could go to Italy, but you would never be an Italian. You can move to Germany, but you would never be a German. You could pack your bags in China or Japan. You would never be Chinese or Japanese. But you can come from any one of those countries to the United States of America, and you can still be an American.”
Quite a bit has modified since 2023, when the 40-year-old biotech entrepreneur launched his bid for president and made himself right into a nationwide determine.
Briefly a co-chair of Elon Musk’s program to slash authorities, Ramaswamy left Washington earlier than President Donald Trump took workplace and entered the race for governor of his native Ohio. And as the latest Turning Point gathering made clear, the nationally conservative motion is riven by infighting over whether or not to denounce or “de-platform” figures selling racism and antisemitism.
Ramaswamy distinguished himself throughout the final GOP primaries with radical coverage proposals — amongst them, elevating the voting age to 25 and abolishing the FBI — and confrontational interviews and debate performances. He decried the “climate change hoax,” referred to as TikTok “digital fentanyl,” and wholeheartedly embraced Trump’s “Make America Great Again” motion whereas nonetheless working in opposition to him.
Ramaswamy accused opponents of being “bought and paid for.” Several opponents fired again.
“I’ve had enough already tonight of a guy who sounds like ChatGPT standing up here,” Chris Christie said throughout one debate. After Ramaswamy steered in one other debate that Nikki Haley was a hypocrite for proposing a ban on TikTok regardless of her daughter utilizing the app, Haley referred to as Ramaswamy “scum.”
Chris Christie calls Vivek Ramaswamy a ‘misogynist’
Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie joins “NCS This Morning” to debate his 2024 presidential opponents Nikki Haley and Vivek Ramaswamy after going through off in the fourth GOP debate hosted by NewsNation.
Now, Ramaswamy is trying to succeed DeWine, who hails from a distinct period of GOP politics.
Notably, regardless of no different main Republicans working in the gubernatorial main, DeWine has declined to endorse Ramaswamy but. DeWine told Cleveland’s WEWS-TV that he needed “to get a better understanding of his positions, what his vision is.”
“For me, I want to get to know him. I’m still doing that,” DeWine mentioned.
Ramaswamy, a Cincinnati native, has centered his marketing campaign on state points, providing critiques of Ohio’s finances, taxes and training insurance policies.
“If you care about your kids living the American dream, in this state, and getting a world-class education in this state – then I’ll tell you this, we’re on the same team,” he mentioned in March.
Jai Chabria, advising Ramaswamy’s marketing campaign, mentioned that “obviously, he has a national platform, but you know, he’s actually gone out this last year, and he’s actually traveled to all 88 counties in the state of Ohio. So he is going there. He’s going where voters are. He’s meeting them in person. And I think that that grassroots effort is a really big deal.”
Terry Casey, a veteran conservative commentator in Ohio, mentioned Ramaswamy “is a curious guy who listens and learns better than a lot of other politicians.” And former Rep. Jim Renacci, speaking to NCS’s Audie Cornish, mentioned it was nonetheless early in the course of forward of Ohio’s May 5 main and that Ramaswamy was nonetheless introducing himself to voters.
“This governor’s been very interesting over the years,” mentioned Renacci, who challenged DeWine four years ago in the GOP primary and lost. “I ran against this governor because in many ways, I didn’t believe he was a conservative Republican either. And I think Vivek in a way is calling him out at the same time.”
Democrats, in the meantime, are more and more assured that Ramaswamy’s potential nomination provides them a gap to win once more at the statewide stage. While Republicans backed Trump in the final three presidential elections, Barack Obama gained the state twice, and longtime former Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown is making a comeback bid subsequent yr after shedding in 2024.
Ramaswamy is prone to face Amy Acton, a doctor and public well being professional who’s working nearly uncontested for the Democratic nomination after taking part in a key role in the DeWine administration’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic.
In the similar interview in which he declined to endorse Ramaswamy, DeWine got here to Acton’s protection as she’s confronted criticism from Ramaswamy over her help for pandemic restrictions.
“The decisions about what to do were mine,” DeWine mentioned. “Buck stops with the governor… Buck stops with me. I made the decisions.”
Former Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland, the final Democrat to carry the high workplace, informed NCS that his state “may surprise a lot of people.”
“I will admit that Ohio has historically been a slightly center-right state, even in the times when Democrats were winning. I felt like Ohio was, you know, a little to the right but contestable and winnable,” Strickland mentioned. “I think that very well may be true this election season.”
Democrats are additionally energized by Brown’s 2026 comeback campaign, optimistic that with robust candidates for governor and Senate gliding by way of uncontested primaries, they will put Ohio again in play.
“I think they chose their weakest candidate. I don’t think (Ramaswamy is) well-liked,” Strickland mentioned. “He’s an arrogant guy.”
Acton on Friday posted on X a video of Ohioans studying aloud the textual content of a extensively shared Ramaswamy put up from 2024 in which he argued U.S. engineers had been shedding jobs to immigrants and their youngsters as a result of “our American culture has venerated mediocrity over excellence for way too long.”
The video ends with the textual content: “Vivek Ramaswamy thinks you’re lazy.”
Republicans keep they’ve the higher hand.
“I feel very confident, even up to the gubernatorial level,” mentioned Matt Dole, chair of the Republicans in Licking County, east of downtown Columbus. “And I know there’s people who look at that race and see it being nationalized because of who (Ramaswamy) is, right? I understand that. But at the end of the day, he’s going to appear on an Ohio ballot in a statewide election year with an ‘R’ after his name.”
Just earlier than his Turning Point speech, Ramaswamy took to the editorial pages of The New York Times, a vanguard of the legacy media he’s usually derided, to chastise the GOP for not denouncing racism and extremism.
“Older Republicans who may doubt the rising prevalence of the blood-and-soil view should think again. My social media feeds are littered with hundreds of slurs, most from accounts that I don’t recognize, about “pajeets” and “street s**tters” and calls to deport me ‘back to India’,” wrote Ramaswamy, the Ohio-born son of Indian immigrants. “Pajeet” is a racist time period for Indians that Fuentes used to explain second girl Usha Vance.
It was a putting shift for Ramaswamy. Two years in the past, he informed an Iowa crowd that “I’m sure the boogeyman White supremacist exists somewhere in America, I’ve just never met him. Never seen one. Never met one in my life. Right. Maybe I’ll meet a unicorn sooner. And maybe those exist too.”
But for months, Ramaswamy has appeared keen to tug again from the tenor that distinguished his presidential marketing campaign.
“I think the more deep lesson that I took away about the future direction of the country is that – we’re sold this myth of national division. That we’re deeply divided as a people. I began my presidential campaign with that premise as well,” he mentioned on an episode of the “13th and Park” podcast over the summer time.
“One of the things I learned is that we are not nearly as divided as the media would have you believe. I think most people in this country actually share the same foundational values in common.”
Elisao Calderon, a 24-year-old Texas A&M University scholar and self-described “Ramaswamy guy,” informed NCS at Turning Point USA’s latest occasion that the occasion must plan for the future by embracing figures who resonate with youthful voters.
While the youth conservative group has begun lining up behind Vance as a 2028 contender, Calderon mentioned it might be a mistake to miss Ramaswamy.
“He’s really good with Gen Z,” Calderon mentioned. “That’s why he relates so much to me and to a lot of people in the younger generation.”