Acton’s estranged mother calls her daughter a liar in the campaign video
President Trump on Thursday defended a Republican attack advertisement that features the estranged mother of Amy Acton, the Democratic candidate for Ohio governor, calling the video from GOP candidate Vivek Ramaswamy’s campaign “very powerful” and accusing Republicans who condemned the spot of playing into Democrats’ hands. The advertisement began circulating earlier in the week and drew rebukes from Democrats and several high-profile Republicans.
Some prominent Ohio Republicans distanced themselves from the advertisement. Sen. Jon Husted said: “I would not have run that ad.” Gov. Mike DeWine said the ad should be taken down. Trump, in a social-media post Thursday, described DeWine as “disloyal to the Republican party” and said he wished the mothers of his opponents would film a similar ad.
“I only wish the mothers of my opponents would be so brave as to come forward and explain that their son or daughter is a liar, and much worse,” Trump wrote. “That took a lot of courage to do but, essentially, what she was really doing was saving Ohio from making a truly horrible choice!”
Trump’s remarks came a day after Vice President JD Vance also defended the ad. Vance criticized fellow Republicans for “whining” about the video, saying that “politics is a tough business” and later adding that the spot “calls it out like it is.”
The advertisement features Acton’s mother, Donna Arthur, who said in the video: “It’s not easy for a mother to say this, but Amy has a serious problem.” She added: “She is a liar.”
Acton has been estranged from her mother since childhood, when her stepfather was charged with sexually abusing her. Acton’s mother stayed with her stepfather and left the state, and he died several decades ago.
Acton’s brother denounced the ad, reiterating that his sister had endured abuse as a child. He called the move a “despicable low.”
The advertisement was the latest development in the Ohio gubernatorial race between Acton and Ramaswamy. Ramaswamy was a Republican presidential hopeful in the 2024 campaign who eventually dropped out of the race and endorsed Trump.
The Wall Street Journal reported that Ramaswamy started as the favorite for governor in red-leaning Ohio with Trump’s endorsement but has ceded ground to Acton in recent months. The contest is now a tossup, though Democrats have not won an Ohio gubernatorial race in two decades.
A recent Fox News poll found that 50% of likely voters support Acton, compared with 48% for Ramaswamy.
Neil Mehta is a news associate at The Wall Street Journal in New York. He first joined the Journal as an intern in summer 2024. He previously interned at New York Public Radio for WNYC and Gothamist in New York City, where he covered housing and the economy in the newsroom’s economics and equity desk, and worked at the Center for Advancing Health Policy Through Research, a health care research group at Brown University. Mehta graduated from Brown University in 2025 with bachelor’s degrees in statistics and public health. There, he was editor in chief of the Brown Daily Herald, the school’s student-run paper.
Marianne LeVine is a White House reporter for The Wall Street Journal. Before joining the Journal, LeVine worked at the Washington Post, where she covered the 2024 presidential race and the Department of Homeland Security. She began her journalism career at Politico, where she covered labor, lobbying and the U.S. Senate.