Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy’s campaign vehicle was reportedly rammed by left-wing protesters.
On Thursday, a group of protestors appeared outside of Ramaswamy’s campaign event at Saints Rest Coffee House in Grinnell, Iowa.
The billionaire entrepreneur’s campaign said that a female driver, later identified as 22-year-old Celia Meagher, hit the campaign’s parked vehicle and drove off. The Grinnell Police Department was called to the scene and contacted the woman.
“While backing up she accidentally made contact with a 2023 Ford Expedition, black in color, bearing FL plate YRP043, [Meagher] Honda’s rear passenger side bumper impacted the driver side rear bumper of the Ford. The Ford was parked on the opposite side of the street, unoccupied at the time of the accident,” the GPD said in a statement.
Police added that “minor damage to both vehicles” was caused by the collision, and Meagher was issued a traffic summons for unsafe backing before being let go from the scene. The car being used by Ramaswamy’s campaign was a rental.
“Our investigation has revealed no evidence to substantiate that information. Meagher stated she was not in the area to protest, she did not know who the vehicle she struck belonged to, she did not intentionally back into the vehicle, and she did not flee the scene of the accident,” GCPD continued.
Ramaswamy, however, rejected the police’s narrative and asked his followers to imagine the roles were reversed, and the perpetrator had been “a guy wearing a MAGA hat.”
“Suppose a guy wearing a MAGA hat is standing amongst protestors at a Democrat presidential candidate’s event, then gets into his car with aggressive bumper stickers, flips off the candidate & screams profanities, lays on his horn, and then reverse-rams the candidate’s parked SUV. I’m sure they’d be just as eager to call it an unrelated accident, right?” the Republican hopeful wrote on the social media platform X.
This comes as new polls show that Ramaswamy is the closest rival to former President Donald Trump, who has a 47-point lead over the 38-year-old presidential candidate.
Ramaswamy has also surpassed Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis with 13 percent to DeSantis’ 8 percent, a stunning development from just a few months ago when the governor led the now-dark horse candidate by 14 percent to 3 percent.
