Vivek Ramaswamy’s Unfavorable Rating Surges in Iowa as Voters Get to Know Him

A new poll from NBC News and the Des Moines Register, long considered the gold standard in the Hawkeye State, shows that the more voters get to know Vivek Ramaswamy, the less inclined they are to like him.

The poll, which indicates that former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (16% apiece) occupy the second tier of Republican candidates behind Donald Trump (43%), would place Ramaswamy (4%) in the back end of the third tier, behind even Senator Tim Scott (R-SC) (7%) and former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie (5%).

And while the share of Iowa voters supporting Ramaswamy remains unchanged since August, the candidate’s unfavorables have skyrocketed. Late this summer, 38% viewed him favorably, while just 20% had an unfavorable opinion of the candidate. Since then, that latter number has nearly doubled, reaching 37%. His favorability rating, meanwhile, has ticked up by just 5% to 43%.

Notably, those changes manifested themselves as Iowans have gotten to know him. In August, 41% didn’t know him well enough to say whether they thought of him favorably or not. Now, that number is down to 20%. The Washington Post‘s Meryl Kornfield provided anecdotal support for this phenomenon on X.

Anecdotally, several voters I’ve talked to in New Hampshire say that they were considering Ramaswamy early on but the more they hear from him the less they like him. https://t.co/bSOWbY4aqF

— Meryl Kornfield (@MerylKornfield) October 30, 2023

And that’s not where the bad news ends for Ramaswamy. Despite his aversion to attacking and habit of praising Trump, he is not the second choice of most voters who call Trump their first.

In fact, significantly more Trump voters prefer DeSantis (41%) next, and even Haley (16%) — who is running on a platform with many more differences from Trump’s than Ramaswamy — is outpacing the entrepreneur and political novice (15%) in that category.

Haley’s rise coinciding with Ramaswamy’s stalling campaign is particularly conspicuous given the fact that Ramaswamy has gone out of his way to make Haley his foil.

In one recent conversation with Tucker Carlson, Ramaswamy even went so far as to argue that Haley’s advocacy for the destruction of Hamas after its execution of a deadly terror attack in Israel was motivated by a profit incentive.

“I don’t think she’s [Haley’s] a child, I think that she is somebody that like many politicians in a position to get wealthier from war,” Ramaswamy told Carlson earlier this month.

The comment prompted Fox News’ Sean Hannity to grill the candidate over the accusation — and his broader foreign policy views — during what became a disastrous interview for Ramaswamy.