Ramaswamy is still sprinting through Iowa, his poll numbers barely moving

Vivek Ramaswamy swept through eastern Iowa on Tuesday at the breakneck pace that has come to define his long presidential campaign.

He stopped at most of the six restaurants and bars on his route just long enough to remind voters he was still in the race, and lingered longer at his final stop of the day. He won praise for his uncomplicated, bombastic style. And he made humorous comments and promised to complete Donald J. Trump’s mission of draining Washington’s bureaucratic swamp by “using the pesticide” on everything that crawls out.

But mostly the day served as a grim reminder of how deeply Mr. Ramaswamy remains mired in a kind of quagmire of his own, trailing far behind his rivals for the Republican nomination and stuck in fourth place in most polls. In Dubuque, a few minutes before Mr. Ramaswamy arrived at a cozy cocktail bar where he was scheduled to speak, one of his campaign surrogates asked the 50 attendees how many of them planned to gather for him. Only five raised their hands.

Some voters wondered aloud at his six rallies in Iowa on Tuesday whether he was merely burnishing his credentials for a presidential run in 2028 or for a position in Trump’s Cabinet if the former president wins back the White House.

“I think he has a very good shot at that,” said Matt Casey, 49, of a possible role for Mr. Ramaswamy in a Trump administration. “He could probably very easily become vice president.”

Mr. Ramaswamy, who has financed his presidential bid largely with the money he made from his clever pitches to investors in his biotechnology company, can probably afford to stay in the fight for as long as he wants. And he has insisted he will exceed expectations and deliver an underdog victory on caucus night on January 15. He has argued that many of his supporters are young people and other caucus-goers who are not being counted in the polls for the first time.

“I think we are going to have a big surprise,” Mr Ramaswamy told reporters on Tuesday.

His tactic of being close to Trump’s policies and praising the former president has earned him accolades and respect from Iowa Republicans. But with less than two weeks until the caucuses, voter support for Trump appears as rock-solid as ever, making Ramaswamy simply the second favorite for many.

“I would like to see a Ramaswamy presidency, but I think he has a steep hill to climb,” said Jeremy Nelson, 46, who worried that voting for Mr. Ramaswamy instead of Mr. Trump could allow Nikki Haley help, which is trying to emerge as the main alternative to the former president. “I don’t want a vote for Vivek in the primaries to be a vote for Nikki Haley,” he added.

Still, Mr. Ramaswamy’s sharp rhetoric on Tuesday impressed many and changed at least some minds. In the dimly lit bar in Dubuque, he eschewed his signature stump speech and jumped straight into a question-and-answer session as his wife, Apoorva Ramaswamy, a surgeon and cancer researcher, looked on.

Mr. Ramaswamy portrayed himself as a more sophisticated version of Mr. Trump, one moment quoting former President John Quincy Adams and telling a voter that Democrats “sold us today the rope that they will use to hang us tomorrow ” the following.

He drew applause when he said that, unlike Mr. Trump, he would not be led astray by political advisers who stopped the former president from abolishing several federal agencies, ending birthright citizenship or using local law enforcement to to assist in the arrest of undocumented immigrants.

Sandy Kapparos, 75, said she was “very impressed” by Mr Ramaswamy’s breadth of knowledge on various issues.

“He brought up everything,” she said. “He just seemed to know so much about it. I was leaning toward Nikki Haley, but now I’m not sure.”

Ben Dickinson, a 32-year-old libertarian from Davenport who attended an event in Bettendorf on Tuesday evening with his partner and two children, plans to organize a rally for Mr. Ramaswamy. He said he thought the candidate had positioned himself well if anything were to happen to Trump’s candidacy. “If Trump were to drop out, Vivek would most likely gain a lot of Trump followers because he hasn’t said anything negative about Trump.”

Mr. Ramaswamy is hardly the first presidential candidate to spend much longer in a primary than expected, and getting into a race can boost name recognition and provide other benefits. Some also-rans, like former Rep. Ron Paul of Texas, built a fervent fan base even as their presidential chances dwindled to near zero.

“I think his name will be known,” Tom Priebe, 75, said of Mr. Ramaswamy’s goal on caucus night. “I don’t know if he’ll get it right this time, but maybe next time.”

With his hopes of winning the nomination faded, Mr Ramaswamy has resorted to a range of tactics, some of which suggest desperation. He rented an apartment in Des Moines, campaigned over Thanksgiving and has so many events on his calendar that he regularly shows up late. His campaign said Tuesday that he had become the first candidate in history to complete the so-called Full Grassley — a tour of each of Iowa’s 99 counties, so named for the trip that longtime state Sen. Chuck Grassley makes every year — two completed several times. .

Mr. Ramaswamy has also delved into the fringes of the far right, promoting conspiracy theories such as the “great replacement theory” — the racist idea that Western elites are trying to replace white Americans with minorities. On Tuesday, he trumpeted a new endorsement of Steve King, the former Iowa congressman who was ousted from office by a primary challenger after his history of racist comments prompted the Republican Party to strip him of his committee assignments in Congress.

On Tuesday morning, Robert Johanningmeier showed up at Mr. Ramaswamy’s event at a bar in Waukon, northeastern Iowa, with a plan. He had a brown “Vivek 2024” hat in the Amazon cart on his phone. Assuming he liked what he heard, he planned to click “buy.”

But after hearing Mr. Ramaswamy speak, Mr. Johanningmeier still wasn’t sold, though he said he was hesitant. He decided to continue wearing the same hat he walked in with: a “Trump 2024” camouflage cap. However, the Ramaswamy hat remained in his cart.