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Ohio Republican gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy defended a controversial ad featuring Democratic opponent Amy Acton’s estranged mother Tuesday night after admitting his campaign is behind it.
“It is an ad from our campaign,” Ramaswamy said of the blistering 1-minute spot, in which Donna Arthur – Acton’s mother – accused her daughter of being a “liar” and embellishing claims of abuse she allegedly suffered as a child.
“I would love for this race and this election to be about the substantive issues that impact Ohioans, and unfortunately, Amy Acton has been hiding from those issues,” he continued, justifying the release of the ad.
The biotech entrepreneur and 2024 Republican presidential primary candidate indicated that the ad was in response to Acton’s refusal to debate and the “disparaging lies” he claimed the Democrat has spread about him.
“She won’t debate me. She doesn’t allow cameras at her events, and I think her record of continuously, certainly during this campaign, I would say spreading some defamatory, disparaging lies about me and my family, that does deserve to be scrutinized,” Ramaswamy told reporters, including local outlet NBC4 Columbus.
Arthur was “not compensated” for the ad, according to Ramaswamy, who noted that he has “never met” Acton’s mother.
Acton, who helmed the Ohio Department of Health from 2019 through 2020, has been estranged from Arthur since 1978, when her husband was arrested and charged with raping then 12-year-old Acton, according to the outlet.
Acton also claims she experienced homelessness as a child, which Arthur disputed in the ad.
“She says she grew up living in a tent. None of that is true,” Arthur said. “She’s lied her entire life.
“My daughter needs help.”
Philip Stearns, Acton’s brother, fumed that Ramaswamy is trying to turn “the sexual abuse Amy endured at twelve years old from our birth mother’s husband into a political talking point.”
“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 released by Acton’s campaign.
“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 currently has a 3.7 percentage point edge over Ramaswamy in the latest RealClearPolitics aggregate of polls — despite Ohio electing just one Democratic governor, Ted Strickland, since 1990.