Presidential contender Vivek Ramaswamy topped Google’s list of trending searches on Thursday morning as the subject of more than a million searches in the past 24 hours.
Ramaswamy, a political newcomer who made a splash at the first GOP primary debate on Wednesday night, led the Google daily search trends, outpacing searches related to Inter Miami, Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin, Nvidia stock, Rudy Giuliani and fellow presidential contender Nikki Haley, respectively. Haley, by contrast, was the subject of more than 100,000 searches.
A Washington Post analysis of Google trends shows that Ramaswamy averaged an interest level of 23 over the course of the two-hour debate, with zero representing no search interest at all and 100 representing the high point in debate-related searches, which came when viewers googled for more information on DeSantis’s military background. DeSantis, by contrast, average a nine. Despite a series of heated exchanges, including with Ramaswamy, former New Jersey governor Chris Christie only managed to average a four.
Former president Donald Trump, who chose not to attend the debate, declared Ramaswamy the winner of the debate after the 38-year-old biotech entrepreneur came to his defense against attacks from Christie.
“This answer gave Vivek Ramaswamy a big WIN in the debate because of a thing called TRUTH. Thank you Vivek!” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social early Thursday morning.
The post included a clip of Ramaswamy calling Trump the “best president of the 21st Century.”
Trump chose to forgo the debate and participate in a pre-taped interview with former Fox News host Tucker Carlson that aired on X at the same time. In Trump’s absence, Ramaswamy emerged as the target of several attacks on Wednesday night and spent a significant amount of time in the spotlight.
He came out swinging, calling the other contenders “Super PAC puppets” and saying he was “the only one on the stage that isn’t bought and paid for.”
Ramaswamy has been the subject of much attention in recent weeks for his heterodox positions on a variety of issues and his ardent defenses of Trump. Cook Political Report publisher and editor Amy Walter said last week that the entrepreneur “comes up a lot” in focus groups “because he’s just so different from the other candidates.”
“He has not cut a traditional political profile,” she added.
He’s shown a strong ability to create viral moments on the campaign trail, like an exchange he had with a “pansexual” activist who confronted him at the Iowa State Fair. Ramaswamy engaged in a conversation with the activist, inviting her to share her own opinions, and ultimately said that he believes “we live in a country where free adults should be free to dress how they want, behave how they want, and that’s fine — but you don’t oppress, you don’t become oppressive by foisting that on others, and that especially includes kids because kids aren’t the same as adults.” The activist thanked Ramaswamy for his response and he thanked her for her “civility.”
He was cheered for a similar interaction with a pro-abortion activist who heckled him at an event in Iowa last month. As she was escorted out of the room, Ramaswamy invited the activist to return and to finish sharing what she had to say. The woman proceeded to tearfully share the difficulties she has faced as a single mother. Ramaswamy thanked her for “doing one of the most important things” by raising a child and asked the audience to applaud the activist as she left the room.
It’s been nearly impossible to log onto social media without seeing a clip of Ramaswamy on the campaign trail or on cable news. Last week, he went viral for rapping Eminem’s Lose Yourself at the conclusion of his “fair-side chat” with Iowa governor Kim Reynolds.
While Ramaswamy has a flair for grabbing attention, the other GOP contenders were quick to note that he has no political experience. Christie called Ramaswamy an “amateur.” Former vice president Mike Pence called him a “rookie.”
“Now is not the time for on-the-job training,” Pence said.
After Ramaswamy said “Ukraine is not a priority for the United States of America,” Haley told him, “You have no foreign policy experience, and it shows.”