Video has emerged of Ohio Republican gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy being challenged over a controversial advert his campaign released featuring the estranged mother of Amy Acton, his Democratic opponent.
In the video, which according to online outlet Mediaite was released by Acton’s campaign, Ramaswamy defends his advert and accused Acton of having “made an attack on my mother in September.”
The footage shows Ramaswamy standing by his advert that has proven contentious within his own party, being criticized by a number of prominent Ohio Republicans but defended by both President Trump and Vice-President Vance.
Newsweek contacted the Ramaswamy and Acton gubernatorial campaigns for comment on Saturday via email.
The Campaign Advert
Earlier this month Ramaswamy’s campaign released an advert featuring Donna Arthur, Amy Acton’s mother, talking about her estranged daughter.
In the video Arthur says: “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.”
Acton has previously said she was sexually abused by her stepfather as a child and removed from her mother’s custody at age 12. This account has been supported by Acton’s brother Philip Stearns.
According to the Associated Press, Acton’s stepfather was charged with raping her when she was 12. He was indicted by a grand jury in 1979 but failed to attend the subsequent court hearing and was a fugitive until at least 1981. He died in 2004.
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In a statement posted on Facebook Acton said: “Between the ages of 10 and 12, I was sexually abused by her husband, while my birth mother did nothing to protect me.”
She continued: “I've always known that she was deeply sick and unwell, and it's sad to see Vivek Ramaswamy exploit her all for his own political gain.”
Connie Luck, a Ramaswamy campaign spokesperson, said: “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.”
New Footage
In the new video Ramaswamy is questioned about his advert by an unknown woman. The date it was recorded is not stated.
In an apparent reference to Arthur the woman says “you’ve had a lot of recent backlash, serious backlash, on your recent campaign ad that features a pedophile supporter and child abuser.”
Ramaswamy replies: “Unfortunately in politics it was a real challenge for me when my opponent made an attack on my mother in September.
“It was unfair and it was a lie and unfortunately the person I’m running against does have serial problems with the truth and every person that’s worked with her has said so and the people who know her best say so and in politics, it’s a tough sport, and you point out where you think your opponents are flawed.”
Ramaswamy didn’t say exactly what he believed Acton had said about his mother in September.
There is no verifiable evidence Arthur is a pedophile supporter or child abuser.
On Aug. 12 Acton’s campaign released a statement accusing Ramaswamy of having “hired his own mother, who lacked research experience, to manipulate clinical trial data in an alleged ‘pump and dump’ pharmaceutical scheme.
Addie Bullock, communications director for Ohioans for Amy Acton, said: “Vivek Ramaswamy will do anything, including shamelessly profiting off Alzheimer’s patients and getting his own mother to manipulate clinical trial data, to make a buck. We cannot trust a scam artist billionaire to put Ohio first, from lowering our costs to taking on corruption.”
This relates to an Alzheimer’s drug produced by Axovant, a company founded by Ramaswamy, which raised $1.4 billion in an initial public offering. Critics accused Ramaswamy of exaggerating the drug’s effectiveness, though he has strongly denied any wrongdoing.
An investigation by Politifact, a non-partisan group, concluded Acton’s claim that Ramaswamy “made hundreds of millions of dollars scamming people” was “mostly false” and unsupported by the available evidence.
During the confrontation with Ramaswamy the woman also said he had “previously interviewed a wife of a registered sex offender.”
This appears to be a reference to an earlier campaign advert released by Ramaswamy that featured the wife of Vernon Edwards, a convicted Ohio sex offender. The Ramaswamy campaign deleted the video when Edwards’ background was pointed out and said it had “no knowledge” of his conviction.
In a statement provided to The New Republic they said the advert was “based on a real interaction between Vivek and an Ohio woman who was distraught at a county fair because she may have to move out of her home due to rising property taxes.”
Ramaswamy made a similar point to the woman commenting: “We don’t do background screens of every person we meet and one man in a group of ten people, someone takes a photograph of him and he has some history in the background. I don’t control that.”
Ohio Polling
On Wednesday the Silver Bulletin polling average put Acton on 48.7 percent against 44 percent for Ramaswamy giving the Democrat a 4.7 percentage point lead. A separate RealClearPolitics polling average, conducted between September 22 and October 19, gave Acton a 3.6 point lead.
Earlier this week CNN reported Ramaswamy’s approval with Ohio independents had fallen to minus 25, the lowest for any Republican gubernatorial nominee in the state since 2000.
Contact Newsweek editor on this story: Edward Pearcey.