Vivek Ramaswamy’s GOP campaign for Ohio governor is running into some fierce headwinds courtesy of the MAGA movement. The cause is rooted in both policy and prejudice.
President Donald Trump has already endorsed Ramaswamy in the state’s Republican primary. And given Ohio’s lean in recent elections — aided in no small part by GOP-backed voter suppression laws — the winner of the primary is likely to enter as the favorite in next year’s general election.
But Ramaswamy has faced something of a revolt from MAGA world in recent months, stemming in part from his Indian heritage, his being Hindu and his controversial remarks late last year in which he slammed Americans’ work ethic and promoted the use of H-1B worker visas to bring in foreign-born talent. Some conservatives have said they want him to lose his race for governor. And the anti-Ramaswamy animus was on full display after Amy Acton, an Ohio Democrat vying for her party’s gubernatorial nomination, rehashed Ramaswamy’s 2024 remarks.
“Vivek Ramaswamy told us how he really feels when he said that Ohioans aren’t succeeding because they’re lazy and mediocre and watching too much TV,” she wrote on X.
“That couldn’t be further from what I’m seeing on the ground every day. Ohioans are working harder than ever, they’re doing everything right, and they just can’t get enough breathing room. Ohio needs a governor who listens, understands, and who is ready to bring down costs on day one.”
Judging from the flood of reactions to Acton’s post, there’s palpable disenchantment over the fact that Ramaswamy’s potential opponent is already using his remarks on American workers to her advantage. Here’s a sample:
And there was plenty more where those came from.
Right-wing commentator Dinesh D’Souza, who spent years downplaying racism among conservatives before recently becoming a critic of anti-Indian racism within the MAGA movement, didn’t exactly help Ramaswamy’s cause when he posted on X: “How ironic it will be if a brown American like Vivek actually helps to fix education and raise the prospects of white kids, while all the professional whiteys on X continue their idle boasting about how they too could get us to the moon, ‘just like some white dudes did in 1969.’”
Conservatives responded to D’Souza’s post with a mix of outrage and abject racism, with some warning that it only stood to fuel more resentment against Ramaswamy.
Of course, none of this means that Ramaswamy’s gubernatorial hopes are dead in the water. But it’s obviously not ideal for a candidate to see members of their own party up in arms and spreading racist invective about them.
