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Tag: vivek ramaswamy
Vivek Ramaswamy

As Vivek Burns Through His Fortune, Iowa Voters Are Yawning

Investor and 2024 Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy has made an all-in bet on the early presidential caucus and primary states of Iowa and New Hampshire, but his efforts there have yet to bear fruit.

In fact, according to a recent New York Times report, Iowa voters appear to be getting more turned off with Ramaswamy the more they see and hear him.

"I feel like a lot of his policies are just kind of identical to a lot of Trump’s policies — he seems just kind of Trump-lite, even with how he speaks," 19-year-old Grinnell College student Che Glenn told the Times. "I just want to know why he thinks anyone would ever consider voting for him over Trump."

Ramaswamy has reportedly spent roughly $20 million on campaign operations so far, with $17 million of that coming from his own personal accounts. The millionaire entrepreneur's campaign has bought $1 million worth of ads on TV ads for the month of November alone.

Days before Thanksgiving, many of his roughly two dozen Iowa gatherings offered free food to attendees, and Ramaswamy has pledged to hold 200 events between now and January 15, when Iowans will show up to caucus for their preferred candidates. And earlier this month, Politico reported that Ramaswamy shuttered his national campaign headquarters in Ohio to concentrate efforts on Iowa and New Hampshire.

However, despite the businessman's significant sums spent in the Hawkeye State, he appears to be bleeding support. RealClearPolitics' polling average among Iowa Republicans shows Ramaswamy in the middle of the pack, with his support dwindling from 7.5 percent in September to just five percent as of November 16. Former President Donald Trump still maintains a significant lead over the rest of the field, holding an approximate 30-point advantage over his closest rivals.

Iowa GOP strategist Jimmy Centers told the Times that Ramaswamy is struggling to convince voters why they should support him instead of Trump, and why the businessman is running against Trump in the primary despite referring to him as the "best president of the 21st century." Ramaswamy has also seen his poll numbers dip after every subsequent debate performance, particularly the last debate in which he invoked former UN ambassador Nikki Haley's daughter (Haley called Ramaswamy "scum" in response to his remark).

Ramaswamy isn't doing much better in New Hampshire, coming in fourth behind Trump, Haley, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, and former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie according to RealClearPolitics.

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

Vivek Ramaswamy

Vivek And Fox News Fabricate An Activist 'Attack' On His Rented Car

A woman accidentally backed her car into one that had been rented by Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy’s campaign in Iowa on Thursday, according to a local police department. But the modern right is desperate to portray itself as under attack from hordes of left-wing terrorists, so several major right-wing media outlets spent Thursday and Friday parroting Ramaswamy’s claim that the car had instead been deliberately hit by activists protesting his campaign stop.

Ramaswamy alleged in a Thursday afternoon social media post that two protesters “got into their car & rammed it into ours.” Roughly two hours later, the Grinnell, Iowa, Police Department said in a statement that its investigation had revealed “no evidence to substantiate” the claim that the campaign’s rental car had been “intentionally rammed.”

Instead, the police found that the driver had been leaving a deli where she had just eaten lunch and that “while backing up she accidentally made contact” with the vehicle, which was “unoccupied at the time.” The driver “stated she was not in the area to protest, she did not know who the vehicle she struck belonged to, she did not intentionally back into the vehicle, and she did not flee the scene of the accident,” the statement said. The driver, a student at Grinnell College, also spoke to her campus newspaper, saying, “It was not an intentional accident whatsoever.”

But shortly after that statement’s release, Ramaswamy’s claim was trumpeted uncontested on Fox News.

Prime-time star Jesse Watters, whose show is a haven for thinly sourced conspiracy theories highlighting the purported perfidy of the left, claimed that the candidate had been “the victim of a hit-and-run by crazy left-wing protesters.” Watters then brought on Ramaswamy and asked him, “Do you think they were trying to hurt you when they rammed their car into yours?”

On-screen text during the segment claimed “protesters crash car into Vivek’s SUV” and “Vivek attacked by left wing protesters.”

Even after Politicoreported that local police had disputed Ramaswamy’s story on Friday, right-wing outlets continued to promote the candidate’s claim. Later Friday morning, both Fox and Newsmax ran reports claiming that Ramaswamy’s car had been hit by protesters. In a particularly confusing case, a segment on Fox’s America’s Newsroom aired the chyron “Vivek Ramaswamy’s car rammed by protesters in Iowa” while other on-screen text simultaneously pointed out that the police had disputed that claim.

Meanwhile, Daily Wire podcaster Michael Knowles called the driver a “punk” who “needs to be imprisoned for a long time” because their actions were “political violence” that is “along the spectrum of assassination.”

“That protester should rot in prison for years,” he added. “That is not only an attempt at committing violence against a presidential candidate, that is violence, that is serious violence and someone could have gotten seriously hurt, if not killed.”

Knowles went on to link the bumping of Ramaswamy’s empty rental car to “the BLM riots that were encouraged by our liberal establishment.”

Reprinted with permission from Media Matters.

Vivek Ramaswamy

Eminem To Vivek: Stop Using My Music Or Else

During an appearance in Iowa earlier this month, biotech millionaire and 2024 Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy "just got on the stage and cut loose" to rapper Eminem's song "Lose Yourself" — and it will likely be the last time, according to The Washington Post.

Per The Post, the longtime emcee has asked the GOP hopeful to refrain from using his music again.

A letter sent to Ramaswamy from the performance rights organization BMI, according to the report, notes that the company will "consider any performance of" the rapper's compositions — also known as Eminem Works — "by the Vivek 2024 campaign from this date forward to be a material breach of the Agreement for which BMI reserves all rights and remedies with respect thereto."

The Post reports:

Moments ahead of his performance in Iowa, Ramaswamy — who used to rap as a student at Harvard University under the stage name 'Da Vek' — was asked by Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds (R) what his favorite walkout song is. He responded with 'Lose Yourself.' The song, from the 2002 film '8 Mile' and won the Oscar for Best Original Song, contains autobiographical elements from the rapper’s life and his overcoming of obstacles in his path to fame. Ramaswamy gleefully performed part of the song to a cheering crowd at the Iowa State Fair, and the moment went viral online.

The newspaper also notes:

This is not the first time the rapper, who's also known as Slim Shady and was born Marshall B. Mathers III, snubbed a Republican politician.

On the day of the third and final presidential debate of the 2016 election, Eminem released a surprise song titled 'Campaign Speech' warning Americans against then-candidate Donald Trump. Nearly a year later, at the BET Hip Hop Awards, the rapper said Trump's policies were harmful to America and also criticized fans of his who voted for Trump in 2016. Right before the 2004 election, Eminem released a political protest song called 'Mosh' that openly criticized then-President George W. Bush.

According to the report, Ramaswamy's campaign senior adviser Tricia McLaughlin replied to an email with questions about Eminem's request, saying, "To the American people’s chagrin, we will have to leave the rapping to the Real Slim Shady."

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

Vivek Ramaswamy

Ramaswamy Is Not A Registered Republican In His Home State

Biotech millionaire and 2024 Republican candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, according to a Friday NBC News report, is classified as an "'unaffiliated' voter" in the Ohio county "he's been registered to vote since November 2021."

Ahead of the first GOP debate earlier this week, several polls indicated that Ramaswamy had "moved into third place in the 2024 GOP presidential primary," but his "MAGA comments" during the debate "drew applause from Republican voters in the audience, indicating that he has a good shot at overtaking [Florida Governor Ron] DeSantis in the primary."

Per NBC, the GOP hopeful "has not voted in a Republican primary recently enough to be affiliated with the party in his home state's voting records," and "he brushed past a question about his sparse voting history during Wednesday's GOP presidential debate."

NBC reports:

According to voting records first posted by an account called Ohio Legislative Watch on X, the website formerly known as Twitter, Ramaswamy did not vote in the Ohio state primaries last year. The records, which NBC News has independently reviewed, also show 'no history recorded' in the primary held this past May.

Earlier this year, the GOP hopeful "proposed adding a constitutional amendment to raise the voting age from eighteen to twenty-five unless citizens pass a civics test or enlist for six months of public service."

According to the 26th Amendment to the United States Constitution, "the right of citizens of the United States, who are eighteen years of age or older, to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of age."

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.