Ramaswamy defends ad featuring Acton's mother on Ohio bus tour

Husted said he would not have run the advertisement

Biotech billionaire Vivek Ramaswamy embarked on a statewide Ohio bus tour across Ohio with fellow Republicans on Friday. Ramaswamy continued a $4 million campaign to air a 60-second advertisement on streaming platforms and television; it featured the estranged mother of his Democratic rival, Dr. Amy Acton. The effort had the backing of Vice President JD Vance and came at President Donald Trump’s urging. Republican Gov. Mike DeWine and former Republican Gov. Bob Taft urged Ramaswamy to stop airing the advertisement, and U.S. Sen. Jon Husted said he would not have run it, as the party fought to maintain political control of Ohio.

At stops on Friday’s tour, Ramaswamy defended the advertisement against criticism he characterized as concocted by Democrats and the news media. Speaking to a crowd in suburban Cleveland on Friday morning, he said: “The irony is they’re lying about an ad that is about lying.” He added: “They’re changing the subject because they don’t want to answer for their own failures.”

The 60-second spot features Acton’s mother, Donna Arthur, calling her daughter “a liar” who “needs help” due to “a serious problem” being honest about her past. Donna Arthur has not seen her daughter in nearly 50 years. She lost custody of her children after her husband, the children’s stepfather, was indicted for the rape of Acton when Acton was 12. Acton, Ohio’s former state health director, says she has not seen her mother since 1978.

By Friday, every living full-term governor of Ohio — two Democrats and three Republicans — had spoken out against the advertisement, The Associated Press reported. Former Republican Gov. Bob Taft told Marion radio show host Scott Spears that his great-grandfather, President William Howard Taft, “is probably rolling over in his grave” at the negativity of this year’s elections. Taft urged Ramaswamy to cease airing the advertisement, as fellow Republican Gov. Mike DeWine had done a day earlier, and said: “It really exceeds the bounds of human decency.”

U.S. Sen. Jon Husted, who, like Ramaswamy, is in a tight race against his Democratic opponent, former Sen. Sherrod Brown, shared a stage with Vance on Wednesday without mentioning the advertisement. Shortly afterward, he issued a statement saying he would not have run it. Other statewide candidates also did not raise the advertisement when appearing on a stage with Ramaswamy.

Husted’s name was emblazoned on the side of the bus with the names of all the other statewide candidates, but he did not participate in the first two stops of Friday’s tour. His campaign said he had scheduling conflicts.

At a campaign rally in Iowa on Thursday, President Donald Trump told the crowd that Ramaswamy had called him to ask for advice about the advertisement. “You’ve got to ride with it,” Trump recalled telling Ramaswamy, a former 2024 presidential candidate. Trump said he was jealous that he did not have such a strong ad to run during his own campaigns and said it was like “hitting pay dirt.”

Acton has made no secret of facing homelessness and abuse as a child and has condemned Ramaswamy for the advertisement. “I won’t normalize somebody who has said that my childhood is just something I’m complaining about,” she told Spectrum News, a cable news outlet in Ohio.

Police and court documents obtained by The Associated Press show that Cledith Arthur was arrested and charged with the rape of his stepdaughter, then 12, in July 1978, after Acton’s biological father reported him to authorities. The alleged abuse occurred from December 1976 to April 1978. Cledith Arthur pleaded not guilty, was indicted by a grand jury that September, failed to show at a court hearing and remained a fugitive until at least 1981. He has since died.

In a separate Republican dispute this cycle, Husted was seeking to retain the Senate seat Vance won in 2022. In August, Husted called on Republican U.S. Rep. Max Miller to resign and drop out as the northeast Ohio congressman faces a congressional ethics investigation related to domestic abuse allegations made by his ex-wife. Husted made that call after Miller’s former father-in-law, Republican U.S. Sen. Bernie Moreno, said his daughter’s former husband was not fit to hold elected office.

Democratic candidate Brian Poindexter, a union ironworker and local councilman seeking to unseat Miller, used Moreno’s interview about Miller in attack ads against his Republican opponent. In The Wall Street Journal, Miller described Husted as “as smart as a box of rocks” and “as entertaining as a two-by-four.”

Ramaswamy continued the $4 million campaign to air the advertisement on streaming platforms and television, with Vance’s backing and at Trump’s urging, as his bus tour continued across Ohio on Friday. Republican Gov. Mike DeWine and former Republican Gov. Bob Taft had urged him to stop airing it, Husted said he would not have run it, and other statewide candidates did not raise the advertisement when sharing a stage with Ramaswamy.