Highlights:
VICE-PRESIDENT JD Vance on Wednesday (21) defended a controversial attack ad by Republican Vivek Ramaswamy’s campaign against his Democratic rival in the Ohio governor’s race, telling fellow Republicans to “stop whining” about it and win the election.
The ad features Democrat Amy Acton’s estranged mother, Donna Arthur, disputing Acton’s account of a childhood that she says included homelessness and sexual abuse.
Arthur, whom Acton says she has not seen since 1978, urges Ohioans not to vote for her daughter.
Acton said she was sexually abused by her stepfather when she was 12. Her mother stayed with him after he was charged with rape, but he fled the state and was never tried. He died in 2004. Acton said she and her brother were removed from their mother’s custody because of severe abuse and neglect, including sexual abuse.
On Tuesday (20), she issued a statement saying she and her brother “endured abuse, hunger, and neglect” as children.
“Between the ages of 10 and 12, I was sexually abused by her husband, while my birth mother did nothing to protect me,” Acton, 60, said of Arthur.
JD VanceReuters
She said it was “sad to see Vivek Ramaswamy exploit her all for his own political gain.” Acton’s brother has corroborated her account.
In an open letter to The Columbus Dispatch, former Columbus mayor Michael Coleman called the ad “the most vile, disgusting and lowest point I have ever seen in 35 years of political engagement.” MK Pritzker, wife of Illinois’s billionaire Democratic governor JB Pritzker, announced a $500,000 donation to Acton’s campaign.
“Bad men gain power when we refuse to stand up and fight,” she said in a statement.
The ad, which has drawn widespread condemnation, highlighted the increasingly bitter campaigning ahead of the November 3 midterm elections. Analysts said it could backfire on Ramaswamy and other Republican candidates in Ohio, a state that has shifted toward the Republicans during Donald Trump’s presidential campaigns.
Vance, campaigning with Ramaswamy and Republican senator Jon Husted on Wednesday, dismissed the criticism.
“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,” Vance said in Cincinnati before attending a rally with Ramaswamy.
The ad first appeared on social media on Tuesday without identifying its source. Ramaswamy’s campaign later acknowledged producing it and said it was spending $4 million to promote it.
“Vivek Ramaswamy had the audacity to run a TV commercial which calls it out like it is and calls Amy Acton a liar,” Vance, who rose to fame through his own account of childhood neglect in Ohio, said at the rally.
“And my message, ladies and gentlemen, is very simple. Whatever you think about any of the TV advertisements, focus on the substance and focus on the facts.”
Trump said on Wednesday that he knew nothing about the ad.
Amy ActonJeff Swensen/Getty Images
“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 before leaving the White House to campaign in South Carolina.
Acton’s brother, Philip Stearns, said in a statement that Ramaswamy’s ad was a “desperate, disgusting attack.”
Acton campaign spokesperson Addie Bullock described Ramaswamy’s decision to promote it as “both despicable and entirely predictable.”
As criticism mounted on Tuesday, Ramaswamy campaign spokesperson Connie Luck said: “We don’t know what happened between Amy and her mother ... but we know that Amy Acton is a serial fabulist.”
Opinion polls showed Acton with a narrow lead over Ramaswamy, and analysts said the controversy could strengthen her position in the race.
“It was campaign malpractice,” said David Cohen, a political science professor at the University of Akron.
Cohen said the controversy could also hurt Husted, who said he would “not have run that ad”. Polls showed Husted trailing Democrat Sherrod Brown in a race that could help determine control of the US Senate.
Among Republicans, Cohen predicted, “I think this will either encourage some people to switch parties, or more likely, you’re going to have a lot of people staying home” on Election Day.
Republican strategist Jeanette Hoffman also said the ad was backfiring on Ramaswamy.
“A lot of times, political ads that are negative, they work. But to work, they have to have credibility behind them,” Hoffman told NewsNation, calling the ad “horrific.”
“This ad is so outrageously offensive it is backfiring on Vivek because you’re making Amy Acton the victim, and Vivek is looking like the villain because Amy Acton is a victim here. She’s a victim of sexual assault.”
Acton’s campaign also released a video featuring her brother, Phil Stearns, who said: “She was 11 and 12 years old, and to think that that’s somehow a talking point. Shame on Vivek.”
