Things are not looking great for Vivek Ramaswamy.
Two polls released this week put Democrat Amy Acton ahead in the Ohio governor’s race. Marist has Acton leading 50% to 44% among registered voters, while a Suffolk poll has her ahead 50% to 41% among likely voters. Another survey has Ramaswamy narrowly ahead, so the race is hardly settled. But Ohio, a state Donald Trump carried comfortably in 2024, should not be producing this kind of anxiety for Republicans.
Ramaswamy spent years mastering the language of the populist right. The question is whether enough voters believe the language reflects conviction rather than calculation.
Some of the explanation is national. Midterms punish incumbent parties. Trump’s approval has tanked, the war with Iran is unpopular, fuel prices have surged, and voters remain angry about affordability. Republicans still control Congress, but they have struggled to turn that control into accomplishments voters can see and feel.
Ramaswamy presents an additional problem, one the party created for itself.
The Cincinnati native was born in 1985 to Indian immigrant parents. His father came to the United States on a student visa and later worked for General Electric; his mother obtained a green card and became a physician. Ramaswamy became a citizen at birth under the 14th Amendment. In other words, he was an “anchor baby.” His mother later naturalized. His father did not.
Ramaswamy built his fortune in biotech. His company Roivant created Axovant around intepirdine, an experimental Alzheimer’s drug licensed from GlaxoSmithKline for $5 million up front. Axovant’s 2015 IPO raised $315 million and briefly pushed the company’s valuation near $3 billion. In 2017, the drug failed its Phase 3 trial and Axovant’s stock fell about 70% in a day.
That history has generated plenty of suspicion among Ramaswamy’s critics, especially because Roivant raised $1.1 billion shortly before the trial results. Suspicion is not proof of fraud, of course, but the fact is that Ramaswamy made his name selling investors on a speculative biotech story that ended in spectacular failure.
He then sold voters another story.
Ramaswamy entered the 2024 presidential race as a long shot and positioned himself as Trump’s most loyal rival. He attacked the administrative state, denounced wokeness, and rarely aimed sustained fire at the front-runner. The campaign raised his national profile even though it never seriously threatened Trump.
After the election, Trump tapped Ramaswamy and Elon Musk to lead the Department of Government Efficiency.
Then came the Christmas crashout.
During a fight over H-1B visas, Ramaswamy argued that American culture had “venerated mediocrity over excellence” for way too long. He contrasted prom queens with math Olympiad champions, jocks with valedictorians, sleepovers with math tutoring, and popular television characters with nerds.
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The backlash on the right was immediate — and deserved — because the argument landed as more than a defense of skilled immigration. Ramaswamy appeared to be telling ordinary Americans that foreign workers were outperforming them because immigrant families possessed a better culture.
The post did not single-handedly end his role in the administration, but it certainly didn’t help. Reporting at the time described deeper disagreements with Musk over the DOGE’s mission, plus Ramaswamy’s plans to run for governor. But the H-1B fight clearly worsened tensions and damaged his standing with parts of Trump’s coalition.
Ramaswamy launched his Ohio campaign in 2025 and quickly received Trump’s endorsement and the backing of the state GOP. On paper, the arrangement looked ideal: a famous candidate, a Republican-leaning state, and a president who remained popular with the GOP base.
Then the national environment deteriorated and the candidate’s own liabilities became harder to hide.
One of those liabilities is religion. Ramaswamy has always been cagey with voters on questions of faith. He was careful to talk about a shared belief in God, but he was never specific about which one. He would share pictures of Christian pastors praying over him but would fail to mention that he did not share their faith.
Ramaswamy is a pagan Hindu who believes in a host of foreign deities. While he would praise Christian values as central to America, he doesn’t quite share them. This once again revealed a lack of sincerity that turned off many voters who were already feeling disillusioned with the GOP.
A sharper identity dispute concerns immigration and assimilation.
Ramaswamy became a symbol of the H-1B fight because he defended a visa program heavily used and abused by Indian professionals while criticizing native-born American culture. Immigration skeptics saw the combination as confirmation of their fear that the Republican donor and business class values imported labor more than the people already here.
Fairly or not, Ramaswamy became the avatar for that argument.
That is the Vivek question now confronting the GOP. A party can nominate a candidate who checks every ideological box on paper and still discover that voters do not trust his instincts, his biography, or his cultural loyalties. Party leaders can explain that the alternative would govern farther left. They can point to endorsements, policy positions, and the partisan lean of the state.
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What they cannot manufacture is enthusiasm.
The newest polling illustrates the cost. Marist finds independents breaking for Acton 57% to 32%. That does not prove one cause, and national conditions may explain much of it. But Republicans should not pretend that candidate selection plays no role simply because acknowledging it would be deeply uncomfortable.
Ramaswamy spent years mastering the language of the populist right. The question is whether enough voters believe the language reflects conviction rather than calculation.
If the answer is no, the problem did not begin with the polls. It began when Republican leaders assumed saying all the right things was the same as being trusted by the people expected to vote.
Donald trump, H1b visas, Independent voters, Presidential race, Vivek ramaswamy, Religion, Ohio, Governor race, Amy acton, Doge, Elon musk, American culture, Endorsement, Gop, Indians, Opinion & analysis
