(RepublicanPress.org) – Before heading into the Republican Iowa Caucus on January 15, ABC News’ FiveThirtyEight showed former President Donald Trump in the lead with average polling giving him 52.7% of the vote. The same poll showed former United Nations Ambassador and South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley with 18.7%, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis with 15.8%, and pharmaceutical industry entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy with 6.4%. After pulling only about 7.7% of the Iowa caucus vote that evening, Ramaswamy made an announcement.
On the night of the caucus, once most of the votes were tallied, the businessman said he was dropping out of the presidential race. According to the New York Post, Ramaswamy said he and his campaign didn’t “achieve the surprise” they had hoped for in Iowa, and he saw “no path for [him]” to the White House in 2024. The now-former candidate said he believes America is “skating on thin ice as a nation” before throwing his support behind the victor of the evening — Trump. Ramaswamy congratulated the former president on the win and asked his supporters to join him in taking “America First…to the next level.”
BREAKING: Vivek Ramaswamy drops out of 2024 race, endorses Donald Trumphttps://t.co/Df7kIYA2iB
— MSNBC (@MSNBC) January 16, 2024
NBC News reported that the former president won the caucus with 51% of the vote, followed by DeSantis with 21.2% and Haley right on the Florida governor’s heels with 19.1%. Just over 110,000 people voted in the caucus that evening out of approximately 600,000 active Republican voters in Iowa — 18.3%.
Just hours before the Iowa caucus, Ramaswamy took to social media to claim Fox News and the Associated Press left him out of a pre-caucus survey entirely. Screenshots shared by the businessman showed only Trump, DeSantis, and Haley listed as choices for pollsters. He did not indicate at the time that he planned to drop out if he lost.
Republican voters in New Hampshire are next on the list, casting their primary votes on January 23.
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