Vivek Ramaswamy was challenged over a controversial campaign ad featuring his opponent Amy Acton’s mother, but the former DOGE co-chair stood by the advertisement.
Acton, the Democrat competing against Ramaswamy in the Ohio governor’s race, sharply criticized the commercial, in which her biological mother, Donna Arthur, calls her a “liar.”
In response, Acton released a statement from her brother, Phillip Stearns, alleging that she was removed from Arthur’s custody at age 12 because of severe abuse and neglect, as well as sexual abuse allegedly committed by her stepfather.
Ramaswamy is standing by the ad and faced an angry heckler at a town hall Tuesday night in Westerville in video posted by an Acton staffer.
Some of the protester’s comments were inaudible in video clips, but he could be heard shouting: “Why did you run the ad with Amy Acton’s mother?”
He also referred to rape and yelled that “she was 12 years old.” Acton’s stepfather was accused of sexually abusing her when she was 12.
Ramaswamy remained relatively composed as police approached the protester and began removing him from the event.
“Sir! Excuse me. Excuse me. You’re going to leave this room if you’re going to do that. Sir. Sir. If you want to be patient and ask a question at the end, you’ll be free to do that.”
Vivek Ramaswamy (pictured) was challenged over a controversial ad featuring his opponent Amy Acton’s mother, but the former DOGE co-chair stood by the advertisement
Acton (pictured), the Democrat running against Ramaswamy for Ohio governor, responded furiously to a commercial featuring her biological mother, Donna Arthur, calling her a “liar”
The protester was quickly escorted out of the town hall.
Ramaswamy’s campaign confirmed late Tuesday that it produced the controversial ad. The campaign said it would spend $4 million to broadcast the spot, despite bipartisan criticism over its decision to revisit Acton’s traumatic childhood.
Connie Luck, a spokesperson for Ramaswamy’s campaign, said Acton’s mother was not paid for appearing in the one-minute commercial.
She said the ad would run online and on television during the final days of the campaign.
Throughout Tuesday, Acton condemned Ramaswamy over the commercial, saying she already believed her opponent was behind the attack.
“I won’t normalize somebody who has said that my childhood is just something I’m complaining about, who today just released an ad using my birth mother, who I was removed from at the age of 12 for severe abuse and neglect, and sexual abuse,” she told Spectrum News, an Ohio cable news outlet.
Acton also accused Ramaswamy of a history of similar personal attacks, referencing criticism he faced during his campaign for the Republican presidential nomination. “This is a lifelong pattern with my opponent,” she said.
Ramaswamy’s campaign initially released a statement that did not say whether he was responsible for the ad or knew who had produced it.
Amy Acton’s estranged mother, Donna Arthur, appears in a campaign ad urging Ohio voters not to support her daughter
In the statement, Luck said Acton “has some serious problems with the truth that the public needs to be aware of.”
The woman identifying herself as Donna Arthur, Acton’s mother, says in the ad: “She lies about her past… she’s lied her entire life.”
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The elderly woman says at the start of the campaign ad: ‘My name is Donna Arthur, and I’m Amy Acton’s mother.’
‘My daughter needs help, and she can’t help you if she needs help herself,’ she continues.
She then delivers a brutal message to Ohio voters: ‘Don’t let her become your governor.’
Arthur then claims that she loves her daughter but accuses Acton of being a ‘liar’ about her upbringing, and her opponent, Ramaswamy.
‘She lies about her past. She says she grew up living in a tent. None of that is true,’ Arthur claims,’ before adding, ‘She’s lied her entire life.’
In a statement released by Acton’s campaign, her brother, Philip Stearns, said the two were removed from their mother Donna Arthur’s custody as children after their stepfather, Arthur’s husband, was indicted for raping Acton as a child.
Ramaswamy’s team confirmed late Tuesday that it produced the controversial advertisement and the campaign said it will spend $4million to broadcast it despite facing bipartisan rebuke for dredging up Acton’s painful childhood
Acton has not seen Arthur, whose last known address was in Pennsylvania, since they were in a courtroom together in 1978.
Later Tuesday, the Acton campaign released a response ad featuring Stearns, who recalls his older sister taking ‘the worst’ of the abuse they faced as children in order to protect him and disparages Ramaswamy and his allies for exploiting the situation.
According to police and court documents obtained by The Associated Press, Cledith Arthur was arrested and charged with the rape of his stepdaughter, then 12, in July 1978, after Acton’s biological father reported his alleged conduct to authorities.
The abuse allegedly happened from December 1976 to April 1978.
Cledith Arthur pleaded not guilty. He was indicted by a grand jury that September, but failed to show at a court hearing and remained a fugitive until at least 1981. He has since died.
High-profile Republicans who back Ramaswamy – including Donald Trump Jr. and influencer Laura Loomer – elevated the video in online posts.
But other Republicans joined Democrats in condemning the ad. Meghan McCain called it ‘dastardly’ and Dan Hauser, a strategist for Republican Senator Mike Lee of Utah, said he deleted his retweet of the ad once he realized ‘the very serious accusations that caused their issues.’
The Democrat running for Senate in Ohio, Sherrod Brown, described the spot as ‘disgusting’ and said everyone – including his opponent, Sen. Jon Husted – should be willing to condemn it.
Husted’s campaign didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
Acton’s mother does not mention Ramaswamy’s name in the ad, but she suggests that Acton has misrepresented her opponent and the time her family was homeless and living in a tent when she was a child – an experience Stearns corroborates.
Recent polls show Ramaswamy trailing Acton by up to seven points ahead of the November 3 election.
A poll released by Marist University on Tuesday showed Acton leading Ramaswamy with 50 percent of likely voters supporting her, compared to 43 percent who supported him.
Fifty-three percent of independents supported Acton, compared to 34 percent who backed Ramaswamy.
One glimmer of hope for the Republican in the latest Marist Poll was that 49 percent, nearly half of Ohio likely voters, think Ramaswamy will win the election, not Acton, who scored 45 percent on that question.
