Almost all of the Republican senators who flirted with the idea seem likely to pass, with the notable exception of Tim Scott, who has been making stops in Iowa and New Hampshire.
Into this vacuum has come Vivek Ramaswamy, who expressed his intentions in a Wall Street Journal opinion piece. He declared that he was running to forge «an inspiring national identity that dilutes the wake-up agenda into irrelevance.»
In an interview with POLITICO’s Daniel Lippman, Vivek added that «the Republican Party has a historic opportunity to answer the question of what it means to be an American.»
You probably don’t know much about Vivek Ramaswamy: He’s a young businessman from Ohio who never ran for anything. But there are a few reasons to keep an eye on it:
- He says he’s willing to spend millions of dollars of an estimated half-billion-dollar fortune in the race.
- He is a regular presence on Fox News Channel, which is the main source of information for Republican primary voters.
- And he appears to be putting together a serious campaign made up of professional politicians.
Vivek swears he has a plan to break out of the single digits and defeat Donald Trump.
In this episode of Playbook Deep Dive, Playbook co-author Ryan Lizza joins Vivek at Art & Soul restaurant to find out if he’s completely delusional, or if he might just be right.