TOI Correspondent from Washington: Talk of “Senator Ramaswamy” is coursing through the US political arena after incoming President Donald Trump is reported to be backing his Indian-American acolyte to succeed JD Vance, who will resign his Ohio senate seat on Friday to become vice-president.
Vance has served just two years of his six year term, and Ohio’s governor Mike DeWine will name a successor for two years before a special election on November 3, 2026, to determine who serves until the term expires in 2029.
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Ramaswamy was born in Cincinnati, Ohio.
Ramaswamy has previously demurred from going to the Senate, preferring to run for Governor of Ohio, but Trump, according to several media reports, is nudging him to take up the senate seat.
If Ramaswamy submits to Trump’s wish, he will be the first Indian-American male Senator; there are currently six Indian-American Congressmen in the House of Representatives. Kamala Harris was elected to the US Senate from California in 2016.
One of several “tech-bros” who gravitated towards Trump in recent months, Ramaswamy is currently working with Elon Musk in the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), an unofficial government body that aims to cut wasteful government expenditure and streamline the upcoming Trump administration. Although yet to be formally constituted, Musk and Ramaswamy have already begun working on the Trump agenda to right-size the government.
Ramaswamy has been low-key in recent days after his remarks critiquing American education was misconstrued by MAGA radicals as calling Americans “lazy and stupid.” More extreme MAGA radicals have called him a foreign agent, a traitor to the MAGA cause, and even asked him to “go back to India” where his immigrant parents hail from.
