Vivek Ramaswamy Kick-Starts Campaign for Ohio Governor
The New York Times
The former presidential candidate is seeking the top office in his home state after a brief stint on President Trump’s cost-cutting task force alongside Elon Musk.
Vivek Ramaswamy, the biotech entrepreneur and former Republican presidential candidate who briefly aided President Trump’s government-restructuring efforts, announced his candidacy for governor of Ohio on Monday, vowing to place the state at the forefront of a “second industrial revolution” in the United States.
Several hours after his announcement, Mr. Trump offered his endorsement in a Truth Social post, a nod that cements Mr. Ramaswamy’s status as the favorite in the Republican primary, which will be held next year.
Addressing a crowd of hundreds of supporters at an aerospace company’s industrial facility in West Chester Township, a suburb of his hometown, Cincinnati, Mr. Ramaswamy framed his candidacy as an extension of Mr. Trump’s efforts in Washington.
“This is not a one-man job,” he said, referring to Mr. Trump’s election. “If we’re all going to be saved as a people, it’s going to be because all of us here step up and save ourselves, and that starts with the states.”
Mr. Ramaswamy, 39, who rose to prominence as a conservative critic of liberal corporate governance, was a long-shot but high-profile candidate in the 2024 Republican presidential primary. He dropped out of the race after a distant fourth-place finish in the Iowa caucuses and quickly rebranded himself as a tireless booster of Mr. Trump and his agenda.
That fueled speculation that he would be considered for a post in Mr. Trump’s cabinet. Instead, he was named to lead the president’s Department of Government Efficiency task force alongside Elon Musk.
