One big reason for Vivek Ramaswamy's quick Iowa Caucus exit? Too few free-beer fans voted

As drunken frat boys chanted expletives at their Kansas Jayhawk opponents, Vivek Ramaswamy held a mic at an Ames bar Oct. 27 and tried to take a question about the Israel-Hamas War.

“Everybody listen to this man right here,” Ramaswamy said while pointing.

“Speak up, son!” one man shouted.

But turning enthusiasm for free alcohol on Halloween weekend from college students dressed like Harry Potter, Benjamin Franklin or Mike Ditka into tangible support at the caucuses was one of many hurdles too high for Ramaswamy's campaign to overcome.

On Monday night, Ramaswamy dropped out after getting 8,449 votes, or 8% support, in Iowa's first-in-the-nation caucuses.

"There's no path for me to be the next president, absent things we don't want to see happen in this country," Ramaswamy said Monday night.

The Oct. 27 event summed up Ramaswamy's predicament. Many of the same college students and other young people, independent voters and Iowans from nontraditional backgrounds attracted to his campaign had never participated in a caucus before.

Ramaswamy was betting on those voters to pull off a major surprise on caucus night. But they had to show up.

“So if they come out we will deliver a mass surprise result in this state because none of them get polled. But the question is, 'Do they come out?'” Ramaswamy said after the Oct. 27 event. “They’re telling us they will. If they do, I think we win the caucus. If they don’t come out, I think it will be the more traditional base, and wherever we land with that traditional base, we’ll see where we land.”

But on a caucus night that was the coldest in 50 years, many of them didn't show up, and his campaign landed with a thud.

Ramaswamy campaign courts young voters with alcohol

Ramaswamy was never able to translate his social-media fame with Gen Z voters into broad support in Iowa, New Hampshire or other early states, even when he tried to entice them with events targeting them.

He held a meet-and-greet with an Iowa State fraternity on Dec. 23. His campaign held three "Free Speech & Free Drinks" events at bars near college campuses in Ames, Iowa City and Des Moines, where his largely self-funded campaign paid for drinks and held town-hall style events with prospective young voters.

At the Ames event Oct. 27, many of the Iowa State students there did not know that Ramaswamy would be speaking until they showed up to the bar. Others were Iowa State students from other states who could not caucus in Iowa.

As Ramaswamy spoke at the bar, Game 1 of the World Series played on TVs in the background. Above the constant chatter of patrons, Ramaswamy and his surrogates tried to explain how caucusing worked.

“Jan. 15, bring everybody you know," Ramaswamy said. “This state picks the president. That’s why we’re here. That’s how we get this done.”

“Tonight go register to vote. We want you coming out on Jan. 15,” Matt Schultz, former Iowa secretary of state and Ramaswamy’s Iowa campaign co-chair, told the crowd. “We need all of your vote, OK, every one of you. So go to Vivek2024.com so you can get more information and make sure you register to vote. And don’t forget to thank Vivek for putting on this party.”

At the start of the event, John Basley, 21, an Iowa State engineering major who dressed as Alexander Hamilton, went up on stage with friends also dressed as founding fathers.

“Alexander Hamilton, get up here, brother,” Ramaswamy told Basley. “Give this guy a round of applause, 1776 in the house!”

Basley agreed with Ramaswamy’s call to secure U.S. borders and agreed with Ramaswamy’s position that there are only two genders. Though the noise made it tough to hear policy positions, Basley appreciated the chance to see Ramaswamy speak.

He also wanted the opportunity for free beer.

“It was a little bit of both," Basley said. “My brother sent it to me. We saw ‘Free beer, free drinks’ and we were kind of amazed. I saw him on TV and was absolutely amazed.”

Ramaswamy campaign told would-be supporters to ignore polls

Of all the Republican candidates, Ramaswamy held the most events by far in Iowa — 323 scheduled public events, according to the Des Moines Register's Candidate Tracker. His campaign says he visited every one of Iowa's 99 counties at least twice and many counties three or more times.

But he struggled to grow his support amid Iowans more infatuated with former President Donald Trump.

"There just wasn't ultimately a rationale that was persuasive to people to actually vote for. I think a lot of Trump supporters liked Vivek. They thought he was a good young fellow," said Dante Scala, a political science professor at the University of New Hampshire. "Maybe somewhere down the line, he'll be the next generation after Trump has come and gone. But he's a candidate for the future. He was never a candidate for right now.

"I mean, why move on when you have the original?"

In the first two Des Moines Register/NBC News/Mediacom Iowa Polls, 4% of likely caucusgoers said Ramaswamy would be their first choice. In the December and January Iowa Polls, 5% and 8% of likely caucusgoers said Ramaswamy was their first choice, respectively.

In the final days before the Iowa Caucuses, Ramaswamy swore he was seeing a groundswell of support from voters who were not polled. On Jan. 14, Ramaswamy and former Iowa Senate President Jake Chapman, Ramaswamy’s Iowa co-chair, said to ignore the polls because they failed to tell the whole story of the electorate.

“Don’t buy the polls. Don’t believe the polls,” Chapman said. “They’re not polling you. There’s one poll that matters, and that’s Monday night.”

Privately, Ramaswamy told staffers that he was worried the cold could stop his voters from going to caucuses, according to volunteers on his campaign.

The results Monday showed that Ramaswamy couldn't get beyond being a "novelty candidate," Scala said.

"His debate performances, I think, were indicative of someone who was on the big stage and struggling to present himself in an effective way," Scala said. "That's why we saw with the debates, you know, one debate, he's very combative. The next debate is more conciliatory. The debate after that he goes back to being combative. He couldn't get his campaign beyond a certain gear."

Warning signs on the Ramaswamy campaign trail

The final weeks of the campaign brought warning signs that Ramaswamy was failing to gain traction with Iowans.  Around lunchtime Jan. 3, more than 200 chairs were set up for a Ramaswamy town hall at a Holiday Inn across from the Des Moines International Airport.

But shortly before the event began, his staff picked up empty chairs at the back of the half-full room and ushered people forward.

In the final weekend before the caucuses, Ramaswamy spoke to more than 100 people at several events in central Iowa — including during a blizzard on Jan. 12. But many of the people at those events were tourists or college students from outside of Iowa who could not vote in Monday’s caucuses.

“When you look at the available folks out there, what you quickly realize is that unless you sway folks from space to your camp in the Republican primary, there's no way you can win," said Ford O'Connell, a Republican strategist who served as a Trump surrogate for the 2020 election. "And no one could do that. No one could effectively do that. Donald Trump still has a hold on the grassroots of the Republican Party. And if you can't whittle that away, there's no way you can mathematically win."

On the morning of Caucus Day, Ramaswamy sounded wistful as he reflected on his year of campaigning in Iowa. Ramaswamy pinned the hopes of his campaign on the state, moving his headquarters from his home in Ohio to Des Moines. He rented an apartment in Des Moines to make travel around Iowa easier and give him a base in the Hawkeye State.

Iowans have a way of humbling politicians, he said during a Monday morning stop in Urbandale.

"Go to 100 Pizza Ranches, and they'll put you in your place," Ramaswamy joked. "We started with the deep-dish, we went to the thin crust. Now I'm at the salad bar by the time we leave Iowa. But it's been the most humbling, but fulfilling and memorable experience of our lives."

Ultimately, Ramaswamy failed to separate himself enough from Trump to attract the voters he needed to move forward. All the way back on June 14 after Ramaswamy spoke at a Sioux City carpet store, Tricia Frederick said she loved Ramaswamy's message but planned to vote for Trump.

Frederick hoped Trump would win the Republican nomination and pick Ramaswamy as his running mate or for a Cabinet position. She hoped that someday Ramaswamy would win the presidency.

"He's got a lot of good ideas," Frederick said. "He's young, he needs some experience. There's a lot of spots for him. This guy is a genius. I believe that Vivek and (Trump) would butt heads in some areas because Trump is very direct. But I think this guy could bring a lot to the table."

At a caucus site at the Horizon Events Center in Clive Monday, Ramaswamy found the same dynamic playing out. Before the caucus started, Ramaswamy spoke with Charles Voss, 72, and asked him which candidate he would vote for. When Voss told him "DJT” meaning Trump, Ramaswamy asked Voss to change his mind.

Voss wasn't persuaded.

”I like him, but I think he and Trump could be pretty compatible, pretty strong allies, Voss said. “I was just telling him I respect him, appreciate what he’s doing, but I’m pretty solidly Trump.”

Philip Joens covers retail, real estate and RAGBRAI for the Des Moines Register. He can be reached at 515-284-8184, pjoens@registermedia.com or on Twitter @Philip_Joens.

This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: Vivek Ramaswamy bet big in Iowa on free-beer-loving young voters. It failed