Vivek Ramaswamy seeks path from Ohio to the White House
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Vivek Ramaswamy speaks at a July political convention in Florida. The Upper Arlington resident is campaigning for the Republican presidential nomination. Photo: Joe Raedle/Getty Images
An Upper Arlington poll worker stepped outside her precinct on Aug. 8 and was shocked to see a presidential candidate in the parking lot.
- "I didn't know that you were local," she said.
- "Yes," Vivek Ramaswamy replied, "we are!"
Driving the news: In a few short months, the Ohioan has risen from political obscurity to presidential contender.
Why it matters: Tonight is a major test for Ramaswamy's campaign as GOP candidates gather for their first debate.
- With frontrunner Donald Trump not participating, Ramaswamy has a prime opportunity to pitch himself to a national audience as a viable alternative.
State of play: Few had heard of the 38-year-old entrepreneur and author when he first entered the race in February. Even by June, 75% of registered voters had no opinion of him, per a Quinnipiac University poll.
- Nonstop podcast interviews, TV appearances and shoe leather campaigning since then has fueled his astonishing rise to third place in GOP primary polling, per the RealClearPolitics average.
- That puts him ahead of a former vice president, a sitting U.S. senator and several current or former governors.
Zoom in: Ramaswamy, a Cincinnati native who counts piano and tennis as hobbies, amassed a large fortune in biotechnology before his rise as a conservative commentator.
- His family moved to Franklin County in 2021, just a few miles from his wife Apoorva's work as a laryngologist at the James Cancer Hospital at OSU.
What they're saying: Ramaswamy tells Axios his family feels "right at home" living in the area.
- "I think the beautiful thing is, you go 50 miles in any direction, draw a radius, you get a pretty good cross section of the country."
That helped, he says, with recruiting workers for a Dublin investment firm he led before stepping down to run for president.
- "We brought people from both coasts of the country … to be honest, the pitch to get people to move here has been pretty easy."
- He now faces lawsuits from former employees who allege securities law violations, the Dispatch reports.
The big picture: Ramaswamy says Columbus has "punched above its weight" over the past 20 years to become a Midwest tech hub, but he would take a different approach to economic development as president.
- Corporate stakeholders have credited government investment with spurring major jobs projects like the federal CHIPS Act did for the incoming Intel chip plants.
Yes, but: Ramaswamy has questioned the CHIPS Act requirement that companies receiving federal funds provide child care for workers, and he pledges to remove administrative red tape.
- "It is a disciplined removal of the federal government's handcuffs, than to shower America with money raining from on high," he says. "I think those are two different models."
- Axios asked Ramaswamy's campaign if he would have signed the CHIPS Act into law, but did not receive an answer.
Where Ramaswamy stands on key issues
Vivekmentum has its costs. As a top challenger, reporters and fellow presidential campaigns have dug further into Ramaswamy's past statements and positions.
The intrigue: Some opposition research stories are false, he claimed to Fox News, but concedes one is true — he was a libertarian rapper in college who went by "Da Vek."
- "It's the most shocking transformation someone will ever undergo," a classmate said of his alter ego at the time. "They're two completely different people."
Between the lines: Ramaswamy has undergone a political transformation in other ways while becoming a presidential contender:
COVID. He advised Lt. Gov. Jon Husted on COVID-19, promoted mask-wearing and said it was "good news" when all adults became vaccine eligible.
- He later called "Covidism" an "unscientific cult," encouraged debate over vaccine efficacy, and criticized the FDA for the "special favored vaccine" it "pushed through under political circumstances in less than a year."
Trump. Ramaswamy tweeted in the aftermath of Jan. 6: "What Trump did last week was wrong. Downright abhorrent. Plain and simple."
- He now claims Trump "isn't the cause of what happened" on that day and pledges to pardon the former president "for this indictment."
- He also claims there was "ballot fraud" in the 2020 election.
Diversity. As a Yale student, Ramaswamy earned a lucrative "New Americans" fellowship, for which he was eligible as the son of Indian immigrants. While CEO of Roivant Sciences, the company launched a nonprofit arm focused on racial and gender diversity in the pharmaceutical industry.
- He now condemns race-based programs, in favor of "colorblind meritocracy," and decries corporate emphasis on Environmental, Social and Governance initiatives.
- On X, formerly known as Twitter, he regularly claims "our strength is not our diversity."
The latest: Ramaswamy has turned heads for floating 9/11 conspiracy theories.
- He views the "climate change agenda" as a "hoax" and wants to raise the voting age to 25 for most people, end absentee voting and shut down the FBI.
What's next: The GOP presidential debate starts at 9pm Wednesday on Fox News.