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WASHINGTON — A jarring new ad in the Ohio governor’s race features Democrat Amy Acton’s birth mother denouncing her and calling her a liar — but Acton says her mom enabled and supported the man who raped her when she was just 12 years old.
Acton’s campaign is now accusing her GOP opponent Vivek Ramaswamy of reaching a “despicable low” in the race by dredging up her painful past as a child sex abuse survivor.
In the shocking video, Donna Arthur accused Acton of embellishing her accusations about being sexually abused as a child.
“I love my daughter, but when I saw her lying about her opponent—and 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,” Arthur said in the stunning video clip.
“She says she grew up living in a tent. None of that is true,” Arthur went on. “She’s lied her entire life. 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.”
“Don’t vote for people who lie. Don’t let her become your governor. If you think she’ll make your life better, you’re fooling yourself. It will only get worse.”
Acton’s camp immediately hit out at Ramaswamy — a tech exec and 2024 presidential candidate — after the video surfaced online Tuesday, but it was not clear who was sponsoring the spot.
Ramaswamy’s campaign didn’t immediately comment Tuesday.
“It’s not surprising that Vivek Ramaswamy has stooped to such a despicable low as to attempt to turn the sexual abuse Amy endured at twelve years old from our birth mother’s husband into a political talking point,” Philip Stearns, Acton’s brother, said in a statement released by her campaign.
“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,” he added.
“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 being deep red since 2016. The state gave President Trump 53% of the vote in 2020 and 55% in 2024.
The Ramaswamy-Acton race has been one of the nation’s nastiest this year — with rampant mudslinging and deeply personal attacks from both sides.
Ramaswamy’s allies have sought to paint Acton as unstable and insinuate that she has an issue with alcohol. For her part, Acton has called Ramaswamy a “serial liar” and a “scam artist,” refusing to debate him. Her allies have also attacked him over his business affairs.
Rumors had swirled for some time that Ramaswamy’s allies were planning to spotlight Arthur, according to lefty Ohio political site The Rooster.
— Ohio Politics News (@OhioCrawler) October 20, 2026Last week, I wrote about how the notorious conman Vivek Ramaswamy had co-opted Dr. Amy Acton's estranged mother for his "October surprise."
Here's the ad in full. Nasty stuff from Ms. Arthur. pic.twitter.com/Sk2DzpBU0l
Acton, who helmed the Ohio Department of Health from 2019 through 2020, has been open about her harsh upbringing, making it part of her political origin story.
The product of an unexpected pregnancy, Acton’s mother divorced her father when she was about three years old, The Vindicator reported.
“It got out of control. Custody [back then] always went to the mom. My dad tried to get custody of us,” she recounted to the outlet in 2019. “I have so many crazy stories. … I spent so much time being scared as a kid, but also navigating the adult world.”
Acton claimed that Arthur was involved with different men until she finally married her stepfather, Bud, whom she said had previously been accused of molestation. His abuse of Acton led to criminal charges being filed against him, and later she moved in with her biological father, according to her account.
“I was lucky that it got bad enough, because it got me out of there,” she recounted, noting how she had been spending winter in a campground around Youngstown, Ohio.
The Democratic hopeful claims Arthur also faced charges and that her stepfather “skipped town and have not been heard from since.” She has been backed up by her brother in that account of events.
Arthur, however, has accused Acton’s biological father, Jerry Stearns, of abusing her when she was pregnant with Acton.
She claimed Acton’s rape and sexual assault accusations against Bud were a custody ploy by Jerry.
