(NewsNation) — Now out of the 2024 presidential election race, Vivek Ramaswamy is backing former President Donald Trump, whom he believes could win the general election in a landslide.
“I think this could be a Reagan, 1980s-style, dare I say it, unifying election,” Ramaswamy said Tuesday on “The Hill on NewsNation.”
Trump is hoping Tuesday’s results in the New Hampshire primary will help him build unity among Republicans to rally them around his candidacy. On Monday, he used a rally to push towards that goal by inviting several of his former GOP rivals on stage, including Ramaswamy.
The 38-year-old biotech entrepreneur dropped out of the race after a fourth-place finish in the Iowa caucuses and endorsed Trump despite once saying the country needs a leader with “fresh legs.”
“That was the whole premise for my candidacy, but the beauty of our country is that the people of the country get to decide who actually leads it,” Ramaswamy said. “The people in Iowa, and I think the people across this country in the Republican primary base, have been clear about who they want to see as their next president.”
Trump was in New Hampshire on Tuesday making a last-minute push with voters in hopes of securing a victory against former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley. Down roughly 10 points in polling ahead of the race, Haley was looking to eat into Trump’s margin or pull off an upset victory.
Haley and Trump are the last remaining candidates on the Republican side after Ramaswamy and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis dropped out following the Iowa caucuses, where DeSantis finished second and Haley third.
Haley, in pitches to voters, has warned Trump and President Joe Biden are past their prime, advocating for a different path for the country.
Ramaswamy isn’t concerned about Trump’s age.
“What really matters is the age of your ideas. What she wants to do is go back to an older vision of the Republican Party, fighting pointless foreign wars and with a domestic surveillance state that reflects Dick Cheney’s old Republican Party,” Ramaswamy said. “I do think that America First is the way of the future of the next generation for the Republican Party.”