Washington, Oct 22 An election advertisement released by Ohio governor-aspirant Vivek Ramaswamy, featuring his opponent Amy Acton’s estranged mother, has kicked off a row angering Republicans and Democrats alike.
The 60-second advertisement features Donna Arthur, Democrat candidate Acton’s mother, calling the latter a liar and urging the Ohio electorate not to vote for her.
Acton, who has a slight lead over Ramaswamy in the Ohio governor’s race, has not had contact with her mother since she was 12 years old. She and her brother were removed from Arthur’s home after a grand jury indicted Arthur’s second husband on a charge of raping Acton.
“I won’t normalise somebody who has said that my childhood is ‘something I’m just 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,” Acton told HQ News Now.
However, US President Donald Trump said he does not think the controversy has anything to do with Ramaswamy.
Vice President J D Vance came out in full support of his old friend, Ramaswamy, and slammed Republicans criticising him.
Illinois Governor J B Pritzker’s wife, M K Pritzer, announced a USD 500,000 donation to Acton after reports said Ramaswamy’s campaign was spending USD 4 million on running the controversial commercial.
“Bad men gain power when we refuse to stand up and fight,” she wrote in a statement that was reposted on X by her husband, a potential 2028 presidential candidate.
A number of Republicans, including Senator Jon Husted, former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley, Meghan McCain and a slew of conservative commentators also found the advertisement revolting.
Former Republican strategist Mike Murphy, who is now a prominent MAGA critic, wrote on X: “This Ramaswamy ad in OH is looking more and more like political suicide.”
However, Trump appeared to support Ramaswamy.
“I know nothing about it, but I hear the mother went very rogue on the daughter and doesn’t have a lot of respect for the daughter. It is 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,” Trump told reporters here.
Campaigning in Ohio, Vance came out in full support of his old friend, Ramaswamy, and even slammed Republicans for criticising the advertisement.
“I have to admit that I am 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,” Vance said.
“The media and the Democrats in the state of Ohio are obsessed because — guess what? — Vivek Ramaswamy had the audacity to run a TV commercial which calls it out like it is and calls Amy Acton a liar,” the vice president said.
“Politics is a tough business. My message to my fellow elected Republicans is if you actually believe in the things you say you believe in, stop whining about an advertisement and go win the race in 13 days,” he added.
Endorsed by Trump last year, 41-year-old Ramaswamy entered the election for the Ohio governor as a clear favourite but is now facing a tough challenge from Acton, the former state health chief.
If Ramaswamy wins the November 3 election, he will become the third person of Indian descent to hold a gubernatorial post after Bobby Jindal in Louisiana and Nikki Haley in South Carolina.
However, the biotech billionaire has had a tough campaign and his attempt to reach out to college students in Ohio ended in disaster in July when he was forced off stage by a right-wing crowd over his “winners versus whiners” speech.
“Are you in the camp of people in this country who want to win? Or are you in the camp of people who want to whine?” he asked a young crowd, which responded with boos and heckling and forced him to “peace out”.
A CNN-SSRS poll, conducted between September 29 and October 5, gave Acton an eight-point lead over Ramaswamy in the state which was last won by a Democrat in 2006. Ted Strickland was the winner on that occasion.
The ActiVote survey conducted between September 27 and October 19 gave Ramaswamy a three-point lead over Acton.
On Wednesday, prediction markets Kalshi showed 77 per cent chances of Acton winning the gubernatorial race against 24 per cent for Ramaswamy.
Born in Cincinnati on August 9, 1985, Ramaswamy traces his roots to Palakkad in Kerala from where his parents shifted to the US.
Raised in Ohio, Ramaswamy was an accomplished pianist, a nationally-ranked tennis player and already a millionaire by the time he graduated from Yale Law School in 2013.
In 2023, Ramaswamy launched his presidential campaign but backed out after a poor showing in the Iowa primaries and endorsed Trump.
After the 2024 election win, Trump appointed Elon Musk and Ramaswamy to lead the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). Ramaswamy opted out soon after to announce a bid for the Ohio governor’s post with blessings from the president.
(PTI News)
