A campaign video from Vivek Ramaswamy, the Republican running to become governor of Ohio, showing him in a batting-cage has been deleted. The move came after multiple people took to social media to mercilessly mock his swing.
The clip was released earlier in the week on Ramaswamy’s social media accounts. Ramaswamy opens the video dressed in a white polo shirt and khakis, relating 10 campaign promises, with each point followed by him swinging in a batting cage.
The potential impact of the video backfired as journalists, analysts and other observers mocked his anemic swings at the ball. CNN reporter Andrew Kacynski shared the video in a post on X, formerly Twitter, and to date it has 3.7 million viewers.
The former presidential hopeful’s team removed the video from his Instagram account, but it was still reportedly on his TikTok account. Ramaswamy has used the “Ten Things I’ll Do For Ohio” angle before in other sports-themed videos. One showed him throwing darts at a fairgrounds, while another showed off his tennis skills.
The mockery got to a point where Washington Sun reporter Jesse Dougherty asked hitting coaches for their critique of Ramaswamy’s cuts at the ball. One coach replied when asked if he had a shot: “Not a shot in hell. Maybe at the batting cage only lol.” An eyewitness at the sports complex claimed he only made contact on five balls out of 25.
Ramaswamy is campaiging against Democratic candidate Amy Acton in the battleground state, and polling so far has the gubernatorial race as a toss-up, with some favoring Acton by a slim percentage.
Ramaswamy is also contending with the stigma of being attached to the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) under President Donald Trump, and his history of success as a proponent of private equity firms.
Democratic Representative Chris Deluzio of Pennsylvania referenced that history in his response to the video
on X. “If we don’t do something about Vivek Ramaswamy’s private equity friends jacking up the cost of youth sports, American kids will grow up thinking that’s how you hit a baseball,” he wrote in the caption.
