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Businessman and former GOP presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy recently called on Gov. Ron DeSantis, R-Fla., to drop out of the Republican primary race on the heels of the Florida governor’s second-place win in Iowa on Monday.
Ramaswamy wrote on X, “I’ll give @RonDeSantis immense credit if he does the right thing & drops out before the NH primary. Most of his votes will go to Trump & we can end this primary to make sure that Nikki … & her neocon ilk never come anywhere near the White House. That’s a key reason why I exited.”
Ramaswamy dropped out of the Republican race for the nomination shortly after the Iowa caucuses were powerfully called for President Trump.
He said in a statement on Monday night that he had called Trump to congratulate him on winning Iowa, noting, “he will have my full endorsement for the presidency, and I think we’re going to do the right thing for this country.”
Ramaswamy later joined Trump on the campaign trail in New Hampshire on Tuesday night in Atkinson, giving a speech in support of President Trump’s 2024 candidacy.
President Trump won the Iowa caucuses with a 30-point lead over Gov. DeSantis, blowing a previous 12-point winning lead from 1988 out of the water.
DeSantis’s meager performance in the Hawkeye State has been projected by many to be the midnight hour of the governor’s 2024 campaign, although he has not indicated at this point that he is planning to drop out of the race before New Hampshire’s primary election.
In the Granite State’s primary, which is scheduled for Jan. 23, Gov. DeSantis is barely holding on to five percent of statewide support from Republican primary voters, according to a poll from Suffolk/Boston Globe. President Trump is the frontrunner with 50 percent of support, giving him a 16-point lead over former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley.
According to the New Hampshire Journal, Gov. DeSantis has said that his campaign will focus on “gathering delegates” after New Hampshire and South Carolina’s state primary races.
However, Trump 2024 National Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt astutely observed, “Can someone tell DeSantis that you can’t ‘gather delegates’ if you don’t win VOTES?”