The campaign of Vivek Ramaswamy, the Republican running for governor of Ohio, has been engulfed in controversy after it aired a $4mn attack advert in which the estranged mother of his Democratic opponent Amy Acton denounced her as a liar.
Members of both parties have slammed Ramaswamy for airing the ad by the mother of Acton, from whom she has been estranged since the age of 12 after accusing her stepfather of sexual abuse.
The row underscores the rising political temperature in the US less than a fortnight before crucial midterm elections which will decide which party controls Congress, as well as holding the post of governor in some states.
Current polling suggests the Democrats are on course to wrest control of the House of Representatives from the Republican Party, which has been weighed down by President Donald Trump’s record-low approval ratings and may also have a chance of flipping the Senate.
The Ohio governor’s race, which pits Ramaswamy, a billionaire biotech entrepreneur who has never held elected office, against Acton, a physician and former public health official, has been marked by a number of increasingly bitter personal attacks.
Polls show Acton leading Ramaswamy by about three percentage points less than two weeks before the November 3 election day.
The video, which was first published by the Ohio politics newsletter The Rooster on Monday evening and was produced by the Ramaswamy campaign, features a recording of Acton’s mother, Donna Arthur, calling her daughter a liar and telling Ohioans not to vote for her.
“She’s lied her entire life,” she says. “My daughter needs help and she can’t help you if she needs help herself.”
Amy Acton’s estranged mother, Donna Arthur in Vivek Ramaswamy's campaign ad
The video has refocused attention on Acton’s troubled family history and her disturbing accounts of childhood sexual abuse. Her mother remained married to Acton’s stepfather until his death, even though he faced criminal charges.
Acton has said she last saw her mother when she was 12. Her stepfather had been charged with raping her. The Acton campaign has produced documents showing that her stepfather was indicted by a grand jury but fled the state before trial.
Acton’s brother Philip Stearns has corroborated her account, saying he also suffered abuse in the household and that he and his sister were removed from their mother’s custody after the stepfather’s arrest.
In a statement, Stearns said it was “not surprising that Vivek Ramaswamy has stooped to such a despicable low as to attempt to turn the sexual abuse Amy endured at twelve years old from our birth mother’s husband into a political talking point”.
Ramaswamy has argued that voters should listen to people who know Acton “well”, including her mother, and said he had never met Arthur, who was not paid for the ad.
Amy Acton's brother Philip Stearns defends her in a campaign ad
When the ad was first released, it was shared widely on social media, including by the president’s son Donald Trump Jr. But it swiftly provoked a backlash, including from members of Ramaswamy’s own party.
Meghan McCain, the daughter of late Arizona senator John McCain, called the attack “dastardly”, adding: “Shame on whatever consultant firm created this.”
Liz Mair, a Conservative commentator, said it was a “terrible ad” which would “remind people of that one family member who hates them for no rational reason at all and make them feel sympathetic towards Acton”.
Nikki Haley, the former Republican presidential candidate, responded to the ad by calling Ramaswamy “a bad guy”, saying it is a “shame he continues to get away with it”.
Haley famously called Ramaswamy “scum” during the third Republican presidential primary debate in 2023 after he mentioned her daughter in an argument about TikTok.
Dan Hauser, a strategist for Mike Lee, the Republican senator from Utah, said he deleted his post sharing the video once he realised “the very serious accusations that caused their issues”.