From New York Times, I'm Michael Bavaro, this is a daily.

In the Republican President's office, the battle for second place has been jolted by

the sudden rise of a political newcomer whose popularity has already eclipsed that of

far more seasoned candidates.

Today.

My colleague Jonathan Weissman on the backstory, message, and strategy of Vivek Ramaswamy.

It's Wednesday, August 30th.

Jonathan, for the past week, the story of the Republican presidential race has been

quite unexpectedly the story of Vivek Ramaswamy.

Remarkable, huh?

Six months ago, Vivek Ramaswamy was, as he says, a skinny little guy with a long name.

Nobody knew who he was, but he was out there telling the soil in Iowa and New Hampshire

using his own money, which is copious, and his patented style of saying no to nobody.

This is a guy who will be on any TV show, any podcast, any radio show.

You ask him, he'll be there.

He could do as many as 30 media hits a day, and that is really his secret, right?

I remember thinking around the end of the sprint that this guy was everywhere.

There was a kind of Vivek ubiquity, and he was rising in the polls.

He was actually moving upward while Ron DeSantis, who was supposed to be the great threat

to Donald Trump, is going down in the polls, and suddenly you're starting to see some

guy named Vivek Ramaswamy, who is about to overtake the second place Republican in the

primaries.

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