The one-minute ad, built around Amy Acton's own mother calling her a liar, began circulating Monday night with no note saying who paid for it. Ramaswamy's campaign has since claimed it, priced a $4 million push behind it, and refused to back down — and in Cincinnati on Wednesday, the vice president told Republicans in his own party to stop whining about it and focus on winning Ohio.
Vice President JD Vance was asked about the ad at a press conference at the FBI's Cincinnati field office on Wednesday, and he did not condemn it. "Politics is a tough business," Vance said. "I'm a little bit disgusted when I see Republicans who are whining more about that advertisement than about who will win the race for Ohio governor." Pressed on whether the ad was appropriate, he declined to say: "Whether the ad was appropriate or not is not really my concern."
In the ad, Donna Arthur speaks directly to the camera about her daughter, Democratic nominee Dr. Amy Acton. "It's not easy for a mother to say this, but Amy was a serious problem. She is a liar; she lies about her past," Arthur says. She disputes Acton's account of a childhood that included poverty and homelessness — "She says she grew up living in a tent. None of that is true. She's lied her entire life" — and adds: "My daughter needs help." The ad, which has spread on social media rather than television, carries no disclosure of who paid for and authorised it.
Ramaswamy confirmed to reporters on Tuesday night that the spot was his. "It is an ad from our campaign," he said. He said Arthur was not compensated for appearing in it and that he has never met her. He said the ad was prompted by Acton's refusal to debate him and by what he called "disparaging lies" she had spread about him and his family: "If she believes that those attacks are unfair and inaccurate, as her attacks on me definitely have been, she'd want to do the same thing as me, which is to defend it and set the record straight on a debate stage. And I think that that is fair and voters deserve the truth." His campaign spokeswoman, Connie Luck, said in a statement: "We don't know what happened between Amy and her mother, who first spoke out about Amy in 2020, but we know that Amy Acton is a serial fabulist who has some serious problems with the truth that the public needs to be aware of before deciding who to entrust as governor." The campaign has announced plans to spend $4 million promoting the ad.
"This desperate, disgusting attack reveals exactly who Vivek Ramaswamy is at his core — a pathetic excuse for a man who is willing to hurt anyone as long as it gets him what he wants."
Acton's campaign answered with a statement from her brother, Philip Stearns. Acton, who ran Ohio's health department under Republican Gov. Mike DeWine during the pandemic, has been estranged from her mother since 1978 — the year her stepfather, Cledith Arthur, was charged with raping Acton when she was 12 years old. "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, accusing Ramaswamy of trying "to turn the sexual abuse Amy endured at twelve years old from our birth mother's husband into a political talking point." Court records provided by Acton's campaign show the stepfather was charged in 1978 and pleaded not guilty, that he and Donna Arthur left Ohio, and that the family lived in a tent for a year. Her campaign called the ad a "despicable low."
The fight lands two weeks before Election Day in one of the country's most watched governor's races, and neither side is retreating: Ramaswamy is putting millions behind the ad, and Vance is telling his own party to drop the subject. "What is my concern is who's going to govern the next generation of American government," Vance said in Cincinnati. "Who is going to win the Senate race in the state of Ohio, who is going to win the governor's race in the state of Ohio."