Some Ohio Republicans Embrace, Some Scurry Away from Appalling Ramaswamy Ad

The Ramaswamy campaign’s new ad featuring Democrat Amy Acton’s mother, in which she repeatedly denounces her daughter as a liar, is making Republicans squirm even in this era of Trump-inflected gutter politics. Acton and her mother have been estranged for decades since her mother’s husband — her stepfather — was indicted for raping Acton when she was a child. 

Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine (R), Secretary of State Frank LaRose (R) and Sen. Jon Husted (R) — who is currently running against Sherrod Brown on the same ticket as gubernatorial candidate Ramaswamy — all said they wouldn’t have run the ad. None of them pulled their endorsements of Ramaswamy. 

“It was just wrong to run this ad,” DeWine told reporters. “The ad on its face is deeply, deeply troubling, but when you know the rest of the story, when you know the backstory, when you know that the husband of the mom was indicted by a grand jury after hearing testimony and that he took off along with the mother and that two children never saw the mother after that. When you know that, it just, to me, makes it more serious. It makes it just more wrong.”

Acton’s stepfather, Cledith Arthur, was indicted for raping her over multiple years when she was 12, then fled the state to escape a trial. Acton’s mother, Donna Arthur, defended Cledith and stayed with him until his death. Acton and her brother were removed from their mother’s custody and haven’t had contact with her since. 

In the new ad, Arthur claims that Acton is unwell and a serial liar, adding as character bona fides — grotesquely, given the nature of her daughter’s abuse — that she was once involved with setting up a sexual abuse clinic at a hospital. The Ramaswamy campaign quickly claimed credit for the spot once it had permeated social media, and pledged $4 million to air it on TV until the election. In a statement, the campaign said it “doesn’t know what happened” between Acton and her mother, but that Acton is a “serial fabulist.” 

The Acton campaign quickly released a counter-ad, featuring her brother, Philip Stearns. He says, “I received a lot of abuse, but Amy always got the worst of it,” adding: “Shame on Vivek.” 

“I’m not changing (my) endorsement. I endorse the whole ticket, as you know,” DeWine said. “I’m a Republican. I endorse a whole ticket. In that ticket are some amazing people, almost all of whom I have worked with in the past.”

LaRose told ABC6 that his office is investigating complaints about the ad. 

“There’s a better way to lead,” tweeted Dave Yost, the former Ohio Attorney General who briefly ran against Ramaswamy in the primary. He linked to Ronald Reagan’s “It’s Morning Again in America” ad.

Other Republicans who endorsed Ramaswamy haven’t commented on the ad at all. They include Sen. Bernie Moreno (R-OH) and the Ohio GOP, neither of whom responded to TPM’s requests for comment. 

And other Republicans, both Ohioans and not, embraced the ad. 

“I have to admit that I’m a little bit disgusted when I see Republicans across the country who are whining more about that advertisement than they are about what the congressional Democrats and other Democrats want to do to the United States of America,” Vice President JD Vance (R) said Wednesday at an event with Husted. 

President Donald Trump told reporters: “It’s a very unusual situation to have a mother hate a daughter that much, but I don’t think that has anything to do with Vivek.”

Meanwhile, most of the MAGA media universe has scrounged up ways to justify the ad, with Ben Shapiro calling the backlash “pearl-clutching” and Megyn Kelly cheering it for being as effective as George H. W. Bush’s infamous Willie Horton ad.