In an unorthodox move, 2024 Republican presidential hopeful Vivek Ramaswamy debated Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., on Wednesday morning at a New Hampshire college, pitching his far-right policies in contrast to Khanna’s left-wing ones — despite Khanna not being a presidential candidate himself, at least this time around.

“I'm very hopeful about the future of America. I'm hopeful when I see the young people, I'm hopeful when I think of my own life story,” said Khanna, the son of Indian immigrants. “Why can't we have childcare at $10 a day? Medicare-for-all, free public college? They say ‘how you going to pay for it?’ Reverse Reagan, Trump, Bush tax cuts. Put that money in giving working and middle class families a shot at the American dream. That's how we bring this country together.”

“I'm glad to hear that we also may share at least a longer-run bright future for America, even if we disagree about the path that get us there,” responded Ramaswamy, also the son of Indian immigrants. “We're taught to believe in both parties right now that we're this nation in decline, right? That we're at the end of the ancient Roman Empire and all we have left is to fight over the scraps of a shrinking pie. I don't think we have to be ancient Rome.”

The largely polite and reserved debate at Saint Anselm College in Manchester, N.H., between a Republican presidential candidate and a Democratic congressman not seeking the White House — yet — was an unusual arrangement, birthed on social media and held in the name of “civil conversation” in an era of “deep polarization,” as Khanna put it.

But while it may be a first this cycle, it will not be the last: one of Ramaswamy’s rivals, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, is set to debate California Gov. Gavin Newsom, another Democrat with his eyes on the future, on Fox News later this month.

The two Republican National Committee-sanctioned debates have been criticized as largely unsatisfactory affairs, with the GOP frontrunner, former President Donald Trump, skipping both in favor of counterprogramming, a pattern set to repeat next week. As the also-rans bicker on stage, Trump has grabbed headlines and watched his poll numbers balloon to nearly insurmountable leads nationally and in early primary states.

Trump is the party’s past, present and likely immediate-future. Beyond that? Ramaswamy has a pitch.

Once a no-name candidate with a resume as a successful biotech entrepreneur, the 38-year-old Ramaswamy has now outlasted a former vice president in the 2024 GOP presidential primary, staking out positions on his party’s furthest most reaches in a bet that is where Republicans are headed. With any candidate not named Trump unlikely to win the party’s nomination in 2024, Ramaswamy’s competitive campaign and well-tuned persona are positioning him to play a significant role in Republican politics for years to come, including possibly in 2028.

“What's my dream for 2050? That we’ll tell our kids and our grandkids that the United States of America is still the nation where no matter who you are, or where your parents came from, or what your skin color is — or how long your last name is in some of our cases — that you still get ahead in this country with your own hard work, your own commitment, your own dedication, and that you are free to speak your mind at every step of the way,” Ramaswamy said, arguing for a colorblind society where merit is rewarded and racial, cultural and other societal divisions are ignored. “That is the American dream. And it is not alive and well. It's alive and on life support right now. But it will be alive and well in 2050 again. I think it could be a lot sooner than that, if we all step up and do our part.”

“It's up to us to move just beyond celebrating diversity and differences, to celebrate those ideals that unite us. That’s why I’m doing what I’m doing,” he added.

Though Khanna co-chaired the 2020 presidential campaign of democratic socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders, he describes himself as a capitalist and is not nearly as radical on the left as Ramaswamy is on the right. The Ohio businessman wants to fire almost two million federal employees and eliminate the Department of Education, the FBI, the CDC, the ATF and the IRS; holds a uniquely isolationist foreign policy among his 2024 cohorts; wants to raise the voting age to 25; spouts bigotry about LGBTQ people; and believes civil rights protections like affirmative action are the “single biggest form of institutionalized racism in America today.”

But the 47-year-old Khanna, too, is positioning himself to be one of the faces of the future in his party. A member of the House Progressive Caucus, Khanna has billed himself as a left-wing capitalist answer to right-wing populism — “economic patriotism,” he calls it — while also emerging as a leading progressive voice on foreign policy in Congress.

“I love patriotism. But we're not going to have patriotism if we don't have a vision for economic empowerment,” Khanna said on Wednesday, praising Biden’s legislative and executive attempts at revitalizing U.S. industry and rebuilding the economy in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic. He argued for a robust federal government that incentivizes private sector investment in struggling American communities, a policy vision shared by the president, who Khanna said he was not “carrying water for,” but whose record he frequently defended and whose campaign he serves as an advisor for.

“It's pretty simple: is the working class and middle class doing better? They have been shafted for the last 40 years,” Khanna said when asked by the debate’s moderator, Boston Globe journalist James Pindell, about important economic indicators. “Let's talk about the success of this president. I mean, its objective success. You've had 13 million jobs created, which is the largest ever in any administration.”

Khanna has frequented New Hampshire numerous times in the last year, speaking at fundraisers and AFL-CIO breakfasts and with local activists, as Biden avoids the early primary state amid a dispute over the order states will vote in next year. As a result, Biden’s name will not be on the ballot in the first-in-the-nation primary state, relying on surrogates like Khanna to make his case ahead of a write-in campaign orchestrated by local allies.

But Khanna may not be in it for just party loyalty. He has also made a notable number of trips to the all-important early primary states of South Carolina and Iowa — earning the honorarium “Iowa’s fifth congressman” from one local newspaper columnist. 

“They say Bill Clinton showed up in New Hampshire in 1980,” he told Bloomberg earlier this year.

The debate covered five areas: the economy, foreign affairs, political reform, climate change and the future of America. Pindell said the candidates picked the topics and that he would avoid minute discussion of the day-to-day of the 2024 primary or about Trump. Khanna mentioned the GOP frontrunner by name twice, both in reference to tax cuts. Ramaswamy did not mention his chief rival at all, portraying himself as an outsider and making the case the country needs “a CEO in the White House,” much as Trump did in 2016.

While the future may be bright for Ramaswamy, 2024 is unlikely to be the year to propel him to the presidency. He’s polling around 5% nationally, trailing DeSantis and former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley in the race for second place behind Trump’s nearly 60% polling average. In New Hampshire, he polls slightly higher, but Trump has around 45% support and Ramaswamy also trails former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie in addition to Haley and DeSantis.

Perhaps most damning to his 2024 chances, the more voters familiarize themselves with Ramaswamy, the more his unfavorables go up. 

But, if his eyes are in fact on the horizon, Ramaswamy may have youth on his side. One recent CNN/University of New Hampshire poll in the state found likely GOP primary voters ages 18 to 34 supported Ramaswamy at a 35% clip, second only to Trump’s 36% and leagues ahead of any other candidate vying to lead Republicans into the future.