Indian-American entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, dropped out of the 2024 US presidential race and announced his support for Donald Trump, after a lacklustre performance in the Iowa Republican caucuses.

Trump’s victory in Iowa that same evening cemented his standing as the front-runner for the Republican nomination. Trump won a landslide victory in the Iowa primary, winning just over 51 per cent of the total votes polled, while DeSantis and Nikki Haley, the former governor of South Carolina finished a distant second and third. Ramaswamy received about 7.7% of the vote and finished fourth in Iowa.

Ramaswamy, relatively unknown in political circles when he entered the race in February 2023, managed to garner attention and support among Republican voters through his strong opinions on immigration and an America-first approach.

Speaking after the results of the Iowa caucus, Ramaswamy said, “As I have said since the beginning, there are two America First candidates in this race. And earlier tonight I called Donald Trump to tell him that I congratulate him on his victory and now going forward he will have my full endorsement for the president.”

Born in Ohio to Keralan immigrants, Ramaswamy became one of the surprise candidates in a Republican field still heavily influenced by Trump’s name.

But in the final days before the Iowa caucuses, Ramaswamy found himself under fire from Trump, who publicly attacked him, calling him a “fraud” on his social media platform Truth Social and saying that supporting the Indian-American represented siding with the “other side.”

With the publication of his 2021 bestseller “Woke, Inc.,” a biting indictment of corporate decisions predicated on social justice and climate change concerns, the Harvard-educated millionaire shot to fame in right-wing circles.