Vivek Ramaswamy is one of the highest-profile candidates seeking the GOP presidential nomination, but he has not voted in a Republican primary recently enough to be affiliated with the party in his home state’s voting records.
Ramaswamy, 38, is listed as an “unaffiliated” voter in Franklin County, Ohio, where he’s been registered to vote since November 2021, after he moved to Columbus.
The biotech multimillionaire has described himself as being a “libertarian freestyler” in college.
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He’s said he voted for a Libertarian in the 2004 presidential election, but did not vote in 2008, 2012 or 2016, according to Reuters, and has contributed to both Republican and Democratic candidates. He brushed past a question about his sparse voting history during Wednesday’s GOP presidential debate.
Ramaswamy said he went on to become a “hardcore” Trump supporter and voted for him in 2020.
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In order to be listed as affiliated with a party in Ohio, a voter has to request that party’s ballot during primaries.
According to voting records first posted by an account called Ohio Legislative Watch on X, the website formerly known as Twitter, Ramaswamy did not vote in the Ohio state primaries last year. The records, which NBC News has independently reviewed, also show “no history recorded” in the primary held this past May.
Ramaswamy did vote in the Aug. 8 special election for a Republican-backed ballot measure that would have made it harder to change the state’s constitution ahead of an effort later this year to enshrine abortion rights. He also voted in the 2021 and 2022 general elections, records show.
Ramaswamy’s campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Ramaswamy, who declared his presidential candidacy this past February, has previously defended his failure to vote in his younger days, telling Sean Hannity he hadn’t then because he was “a jaded person in my twenties.”
