TOI correspondent from Washington: MAGA boss Donald Trump and his vice-president JD Vance have doubled down on supporting Indian-American Vivek Ramaswamy for Governor of Ohio despite a campaign fiasco roiling the Republican party.
It involves a Ramaswamy campaign ad appearing to ignore and belittle the childhood sexual abuse trauma of his Democratic opponent.The controversial ad features Donna Arthur, the birth mother of Democratic candidate Amy Acton, accusing her daughter of lying about her past and urging voters not to elect her governor. It disputes Acton’s account of childhood homelessness and abuse, without explaining the family history behind their estrangement.Also Read: Vivek Ramaswamy goes low in Ohio's race to the bottomActon, 60, has said she was sexually abused by her stepfather when she was a child and that her mother failed to protect her and continued to live with the man. She and her brother were removed from their mother’s custody, and Acton has said she has not seen her mother since childhood. Her brother, Philip Stearns, has supported her account. Court records have corroborated significant elements of the childhood trauma, and Acton has called the advertisement exploitative and deeply hurtful.
Trump, who initially professed ignorance of the ad, subsequently endorsed it in emphatic terms, calling it “very powerful” in a Truth Social post and asking, “Who wouldn’t use such an Ad?” He described the controversy surrounding it as evidence that the press was trying to suppress an effective political attack, even as Vance, who was elected Senator from Ohio before his elevation as veep, told Republicans to stop complaining about it and concentrate on winning elections.The ad has freaked out many Republicans -- already on the backfoot and in danger of losing both the House and Senate -- who believe it crosses a line even by the standards of modern negative campaigning. Ohio’s outgoing Governor Mike DeWine, a Republican who has endorsed Ramaswamy, called the spot “just wrong” and urged the campaign to take it down. Former Republican presidential candidate and South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley also criticised Ramaswamy, saying, “He’s a bad guy,” and asserting that the controversy vindicated her earlier warnings about him.But the most scathing criticism came from GOP lawmaker Nancy Mace of South Carolina, who has spoken publicly about her own experience as a sexual-abuse survivor, and is one of only four Republicans who joined Democrats in demanding release of the Epstein files. “The thing with Vivek is he could have won WITHOUT that ad. Just nasty...The bar is low and somehow he managed to limbo under the lowest bar of decency in this country,” Mace said, adding that anyone defending it “needs to have their head examined.
”Trump and Vance did just that. “It's 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, accepting the mother's allegations without addressing Acton's claims of childhood sexual abuse that has received sympathy nationwide. “The Press is trying to convince everyone that this Ad is bad, because it’s so good! Who wouldn’t use such an Ad? I would, it’s called, “hitting pay dirt.
” Trump said.The political consequences of the ad fiasco extend beyond the governor's race in Ohio where Ramaswamy now trails Acton. It could also pull down Republican Senator Jon Husted, fighting to retain his against Democrat Sherrod Brown, a former Senator who backpacked through India in the 1970s as a young collegiate and has local Indian support.The Ohio controversy is unfolding against a deteriorating political backdrop for Trump, whose decision to campaign aggressively for Republican candidates has become a double-edged sword.
At rallies in recent days Trump has continued to rely on his familiar combination of grievances, personal attacks, boasts and freewheeling digressions, all of which appeal to his hardcore MAGA base but is driving away moderates.
The disconnect between Trump's rally rhetoric and the concerns dominating household budgets -- Inflation, gasoline, groceries, health care and home energy costs -- are ratting even Republicans now. Republicans hold the House 218-214 and Senate 53-47, so loss of even a 3-4 seats will result in a big upheaval in Washington DC.