Republican Vivek Ramaswamy’s gubernatorial campaign took a hit from critics on Tuesday, after an ad featuring his rival’s mother denouncing her daughter circulated in the Ohio race.
In the ad, Democratic gubernatorial candidate Amy Acton’s mother, Donna Arthur, tells viewers not to vote for her daughter. Arthur identified herself as someone who had worked with the “Children and Family Service Association to build one of the first two sexual abuse programs in America,” and described her daughter, Acton, as someone who “has lied her entire life.” It is unclear who or what organization circulated the roughly 60-second ad spot, which hit just two weeks before voters head to the polls to pick their next governor in the competitive race.
The ad prompted swift backlash from the Acton campaign, which immediately suggested Ramaswamy was behind it and sought to paint the Democratic candidate’s mother in a negative light. Acton’s brother, Philip Stearns, slammed Arthur for staying married to someone he said sexually abused Acton as a child. He described Arthur as an “estranged and abusive mother.”
“After he was arrested and Amy and I were removed from their custody, our birth mother stayed married to Amy’s rapist until he died,” Stearns said in a statement. “This desperate, disgusting attack reveals exactly who Vivek Ramaswamy is at his core – a pathetic excuse for a man.”
Acton and Ramaswamy are engaged in a tight race for the Ohio governor’s seat. Some of the latest polling has given Acton a 7-point lead, though others indicate the race is within the margin of error.
In 2019, Acton told the Vindicator that one of her mother’s boyfriends-turned-husbands abused her as a child. She said officials were called in and criminal charges were filed. After the incident, she claimed that at one point, the family was living in a tent in a campground outside Youngstown. She and her mother became estranged as the charges played out in court, Acton said.
In the attack ad on Tuesday, Arthur called her daughter a liar and said she could not be trusted.
“I love my daughter, but when I saw her lying about her opponent — it’s not easy for a mother to say this. But Amy has a serious problem. She is a liar. She lies about her past. She says she grew up living in a tent,” Arthur said. “None of that is true.”
“My daughter needs help, and she can’t help you if she needs help herself. People can change, but first they have to tell the truth. And my daughter still isn’t doing that,” she continued. “Don’t vote for people who lie.”
The Democratic Governors Association pushed back, saying the ad proves Ramaswamy is “totally unfit to be governor.”
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“Vivek Ramaswamy should be ashamed of himself for giving airtime to yet another person who was complicit in acts of horrific sexual abuse — this time against Dr. Acton herself,” the DGA said in a statement. “With this disgusting attack, and the relentless smear campaign leading up to it, Vivek Ramaswamy has shown that there is no depth he will not sink to if it serves his own ambitions.”
The Washington Examiner reached out to the Ramaswamy campaign for comment.
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[ H/T Washington Examiner ]
