Vivek Ramaswamy is already getting “amazing” traction in the GOP presidential primary race, Sean Spicer said, after spending the weekend at the Iowa State Fair, an early whistle-stop for Republican presidential candidates.
The NewsNation political contributor and former White House press secretary was asked Monday to whom Ramaswamy poses a bigger threat – Ron DeSantis or Donald Trump? With the Ohio-born entrepreneur running third but still polling in single-digits, Spicer sees more trouble for the Florida governor.
“It is amazing the amount of traction [Ramaswamy] has been getting,” Spicer said. “I think that he’s probably a bigger threat to DeSantis because right now DeSantis is positioning himself as the alternative to Trump, but he’s stalled out.”
Spicer said Ramaswamy has something most presidential candidates don’t: a blank space where a voting record would normally go.
“If they can continue to move forward, I think he can position himself as that No. 2 alternative – and frankly without a voting record, having never held office, he is a much harder person to define,” Spicer said.
All that said, Spicer cautioned against counting out DeSantis – particularly in Iowa, where the nation’s first caucuses will set the primary’s tone in five months. Spicer said DeSantis’ organizers have a good foothold in the state where Trump, a vocal opponent of the popular Republican governor, could be weakest.
“The media has got to be careful about how it evaluates DeSantis from a national standpoint, there’s no question that he’s had some missteps, like how quick they burn through money,” Spicer said. But he noted that Team DeSantis says they have a strong commitment of caucus-goers, who have “spent the time building what it takes to win.”
“I would be very careful about writing him off because if he wins Iowa, I think he shows that Trump is vulnerable and then he can kind of keep the momentum. … He may not have having the best ride nationally, but they made it clear to everybody, they put all those chips in Iowa, which is a straight-up organizing state,” Spicer said.
Watch the entire interview in the clip above.
