GOP strategy to avoid attacking Trump mocked as Vivek Ramaswamy drops out after “biggest blowout”

Biotech entrepreneur and conservative author Vivek Ramaswamy officially bowed out of the 2024 presidential race on Monday, handing GOP frontrunner and former President Donald Trump an endorsement on his way out. Ramaswamy finished fourth by a wide margin in Iowa’s Monday caucuses — behind Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and ex-South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley’s respective, close second and third place finishes. The 38-year-old novice politician said he ended his campaign because he couldn’t see a path forward in the contest, “absent things that we don’t want to see happen in this country,” The Associated Press reported.

Trump “will have my full endorsement for the presidency,” Ramaswamy told a crowd of his supporters at a Des Moines hotel, adding: “And I think we’re going to do the right thing for this country. And so I’m going to ask you to follow me in taking our America First movement to the next level.” Ramaswamy suggested Haley and DeSantis “follow suit” and teased his likely appearance with Trump on Tuesday in New Hampshire. In his victory speech, the former president praised the Ohioan, saying Ramaswamy did a “helluva job,” despite having attacked him in a Truth Social post Monday morning.

Politics experts mocked Ramaswamy and Trump’s other Republican opponents for their political strategies. “Turns out ignoring the frontrunner and his countless vulnerabilities is not, in fact, a winning strategy,” longtime Republican strategist Brendan Buck wrote on X, formerly Twitter. “The GOP ad gurus who spent tens of millions on ads that did everything except critique Trump covering themselves in glory tonight,” added Tim Miller, a political consultant and MSNBC analyst. “They had no choice! If they criticized Trump they would’ve gotten slaughtered, they say! Congrats on the biggest blowout loss in caucus history.”