Ron DeSantis’ presidential campaign has tried to cling to the impression that the fight for the Republican nomination remains a two-man race.

But with his campaign shirking in size and strength and falling further behind front-runner Donald Trump, Vivek Ramaswamy is moving expeditiously to stamp out that impression for good.

The 37-year-old biotech investor is beginning to make an argument similar to that of the Florida governor: It’s a two-man race, but it’s he who is emerging as the No. 2 candidate to the former president.

“I think functionally I am in second place,” Ramaswamy told McClatchyDC in an interview. “I’m in second place by a wide margin in the metric that matters.”

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