Insights
Vivek Ramaswamy Captures Digital Momentum in Lead Up to Republican Debate
Millennial businessman edges ahead of Ron DeSantis in campaign website visits
In the days before Wednesday’s Republican Presidential candidate debate on Fox News, Vivek Ramaswamy is the candidate Republican voters most want to learn more about – and potentially support – based on traffic to the campaign websites. In the first 20 days of July, his campaign website vivek2024.com attracted more visits than did rondesantis.com – and 44% as many as donaldjtrump.com.
Traffic to Ramaswamy’s website is also trending upward, day by day, pulling farther into the lead among the rivals to former President Donald J. Trump who will meet onstage for the debate, which Trump has opted to skip.
Key takeaways
- Daily traffic to vivek2024.com peaked on August 18, with about 39,000 visits compared with about 9,000 visits for rondesantis.com and about 45,000 visits for donaldjtrump.com, according to Similarweb estimates. That was the day after news broke about a leak of the DeSantis campaign strategy to defend Trump and attack Ramaswamy – and about the time of several other favorable campaign profiles.
- In the first 20 days of August, vivek2024.com attracted nearly 358,000 visits, compared with about 353,700 for rondesantis.com and about 811,700 for donaldjtrump.com.
- That’s a big swing from the July totals, when rondesantis.com got over 518,000 visits to about 357,800 for vivek2024.com – and 1.1 million for donaldjtrump.com.
This may not mean anything more than that voters are hearing about Ramaswamy for the first time and are curious to learn more about him. They may also have been curious about why DeSantis campaign advisers saw Ramaswamy as a threat. In terms of putting a dent in Trump’s digital dominance, rising traffic for competitors doesn’t tell the whole story. Trump has an entire social media platform, Truth Social, made in his image.
Pulling ahead in August
The DeSantis campaign website was ahead in traffic at the beginning of the month, but since Aug. 12 Ramaswamy has been attracting more digital attention.
Other candidates such as Tim Scott haven’t advanced significantly by this measure.
How the rankings flipped
In July, the DeSantis campaign had a significant lead in web traffic.
Based on the first 20 days of traffic, it looks like Ramaswamy will be slightly ahead of DeSantis in online traffic – and be the candidate with the most digital momentum.
Of course, things could change for Ramaswamy – for better or for worse – depending on his debate performance on Wednesday night.
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