Ramaswamy’s Sales Pitch Resonating Among Young Voters on Elite College Campuses

“Dynamic,” “edgy,” “fresh,” “savvy,” and “intellectually rigorous”: These are just a few of the words college students are invoking to describe Vivek Ramaswamy. The excitement surrounding the first millennial to run for president as a Republican is energizing conservatives at Harvard, where not too long ago the future candidate was a student himself.In a recent online poll, the 38-year-old Mr. Ramaswamy overtook Governor DeSantis as the second-place candidate for the Republican ticket behind President Trump. His fan base tends toward younger Republicans and voters with college degrees, cohorts that are often more present in online polls than phone surveys, where he is polling in third place. “Of all of the people in the Republican field, he would probably be among the best in terms of connecting with undergrads,” a Harvard student from the class of 2024 and an editor at the Harvard Crimson, Lucas Gazianis, said.“I see his campaign as almost a counterculture movement, since most campuses across the U.S. are extremely liberal-minded — especially the faculty,” a Harvard student from the class of 2025, Alexandra Dorofeev, said. Ms. Dorofeev commends the candidate’s critique of corporations like Nike that he says virtue-signal through environmental, social, and governance investing: “It’s really great that he is calling people out and exposing some of the flaws in corporate America.”To many young conservatives, Messrs. Trump and DeSantis are “mentally taxing” and come with “baggage,” a recent Harvard graduate, who requested anonymity due to fear that sharing political views might interfere with future employment opportunities, explained. “The freshness that maybe the prospect of Trump’s presidency brought in 2016 is no longer there anymore.”As the founder of a successful biotech company and asset management firm, Mr. Ramaswamy, who graduated from Harvard and Yale Law School, is garnering appeal for his outsider status in politics. “You have a lot more confidence in that person to effectively be the CEO of a country than you do in a couple of career politicians,” the student continued. Mr. Ramaswamy’s diagnosis of moral malaise and groundlessness infecting the national culture appears to strike a chord with young voters. “Speaking as a member of my generation, I think we are in the middle of this national void, where young people like me, we’re just so hungry to believe in something bigger than ourselves,” he proclaimed at the Iowa State Fair on Saturday.While other presidential candidates are promoting their platforms through traditional news outlets and spending millions of dollars on television advertising, Mr. Ramaswamy, who’s self-funding his campaign, is harnessing free “earned media” to build his brand. His rap performance of “Lose Yourself” by Eminem at the Iowa State Fair has garnered millions of views online, in just one example. “I can’t remember any other politician doing anything like that,” a former chairman of Harvard’s political philosophy organization, the John Adams Society, William Thompson, said of the performance. “His ability to just put out viral tweets despite not having any name recognition at the beginning I think will definitely be a model for people going forward.”Mr. Ramaswamy is also gaining traction through interviews on popular podcasts, which are free of the “clear biases” and “fictional twists” of a writer’s word choice in the mainstream media, Ms. Dorofeev said. Even some who disagree with Mr. Ramaswamy’s policy positions appreciate his political savvy.“I don’t like most of what he is running on,” Mr. Gazianis, who is registered as a Democrat, said. He takes issue with Mr. Ramaswamy’s proposal to remove birthright citizenship for the children of undocumented immigrants, but “nonetheless, I find him an impressive candidate.”Mr. Gazianis lauds Mr Ramaswamy for evading polarizing political fodder through his attitude of civility and politeness, as displayed in the candidate’s recent interaction with a “pansexual” activist who inquired about his stance on same-sex marriage.“I’m impressed with the way he communicates,” Mr. Gazianis said. “He seems more articulate and charismatic than anyone else in the field.”Mr. Gazianis noted, though, that success on social media is not sufficient for success in an election: “Twitter is not real life. It’s not representative of most voters in the country.”Yet Mr. Ramawamy’s campaign does shed light on issues that are often neglected in conversations at higher education institutions.“College campuses are sort of like closed systems where certain issues become ways to signal status and like intelligence,” the Harvard graduate said, admonishing how the “liberal” element of a liberal arts education has transformed from philosopher John Stewart Mill’s definition of individual freedom into “something super sinister and not liberal at all.”The student predicts that Mr. Ramaswamy will continue to compel voters who are disillusioned by this culture: “At the end of the day, most students when they graduate want jobs, and they want a smart person leading the country — someone relatable who they could look up to.”

Ramaswamy’s Sales Pitch Resonating Among Young Voters on Elite College Campuses

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