Vivek Ramaswamy Pulls Attack Ad Featuring Amy Acton’s Estranged Mother After Bipartisan Backlash

The Ramaswamy attack ad featuring Amy Acton’s estranged mother is off the air in Ohio, the Acton campaign announced Thursday, just days before voters decide the governor’s race on November 3.

Republican Vivek Ramaswamy is running against Democrat Dr. Amy Acton, the former Ohio health director who became a household name during the early days of COVID. The ad in question featured Donna Arthur, Acton’s birth mother, calling her daughter “a liar” and saying she “needs help,” a line widely read as suggesting Acton has mental health problems.

Acton’s campaign did not hold back. In a statement, it said Ramaswamy “should never have run his despicable ad in the first place” and accused him of pulling it “in the most cowardly way possible, without even the hint of an apology.”

Ramaswamy tells it differently. He told The Columbus Dispatch the broadcast spot simply “ran to completion,” meaning he is not framing the move as backing down.

To understand why this ad set off so much anger, you have to know Acton’s story. Acton has spoken publicly for years about a childhood of neglect, homelessness and abuse. She has said her stepfather, Cledith Arthur, sexually abused her, and he was charged with raping her when she was 12 before fleeing to Pennsylvania. That same year, officials removed Acton and her brother from their mother’s custody. Acton says she has not spoken to her mother since. Court records reviewed by the Ohio Capital Journal back up her account of what happened.

So when the woman who lost custody of her over that abuse appeared in a campaign ad calling her a liar, Acton took it personally.

“I’d hoped he wouldn’t sink this low, but of course he did,” Acton said. “I had a childhood of extreme physical and sexual abuse. My brother and I were finally removed from my mother’s custody at the age of 12.”

She also tied the ad to something Ramaswamy said earlier on the trail, when he claimed “Amy Acton just complains about what someone else did to her.” Acton told Spectrum News she would not “normalize somebody who has said that my childhood is just something I’m complaining about,” and she has said her mother is not well.

The Ramaswamy attack ad first circulated online last week, and at first his campaign would not say who made it. It only put out a statement saying Ohioans deserved to know Acton’s own mother does not support her. Then the campaign confirmed it produced the one minute spot, said Arthur was not paid, and announced plans to spend $4 million promoting it on TV and streaming.

Ramaswamy defended it in a video of his own. “The advice I was raised in: you never start a fight,” he said. “But if you find yourself in one? You finish it. And you have to stand for what is right and what is true.”

He also argued the race should be about real issues and accused Acton of “hiding from those issues,” a reference to her refusal to debate him.

The backlash crossed party lines. Ohio Governor Mike DeWine, a Republican and the man Ramaswamy is trying to replace, told him to take the ad down immediately. Vice President JD Vance went the other way, showing up at an Ohio rally to say Ramaswamy was right to run an ad that “calls Amy Acton a liar.”

Instead of dropping it then, the campaign switched to a shorter 30 second version last weekend, according to NBC News. Now that version is gone too.

With early voting underway and Election Day less than a week out, Ohioans will decide whether this ad cost Ramaswamy more than it gained him.

Dee Dee Henderson

Dee Dee Henderson is a Poli Alert journalist covering national politics, elections and the policies that hit closest to home for Black communities, from voting rights and the economy to the courts. She reports the facts first and isn't afraid to say what they mean, and her commentary pieces are clearly labeled as opinion. Her midterm coverage breaks down deadlines, ballot measures and the races that will decide who holds power in Washington.

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