President Donald Trump is defending a controversial ad run by Ohio GOP candidate for governor Vivek Ramaswamy that features his Democratic opponent’s estranged mother, calling it “very powerful” and criticizing the state’s Republican governor after he condemned the ad.
“The Press is trying to convince everyone that this Ad is bad, because it’s so good! Who wouldn’t use such an Ad? I would, it’s called, ‘hitting pay dirt,'” Trump said in an Oct. 22 social media post.
In the ad, Democratic candidate Amy Acton’s mother, Donna Arthur, accuses her daughter of lying “about her past.” Acton and her mother haven’t spoken since she was 12, after Arthur’s husband was charged with rape for allegedly sexually abusing Acton.
Top Republicans in Ohio have distanced themselves from the ad. Sen. Jon Husted and Secretary of State Frank LaRose said they wouldn’t have run the spot, while Gov. Mike DeWine and former Gov. John Kasich both denounced the ad, The Columbus Dispatch, part of the USA TODAY Network, reported.
“It was just wrong to run this ad,” DeWine told reporters, saying the ad “on its face is deeply, deeply troubling, but when you know the rest of the story, when you know the backstory… it just, to me, makes it more serious. It makes it just more wrong.”
Kasich said the ad is “completely inappropriate.”
Vivek Ramaswamy speaks in Stark County in 2025; Amy Acton addresses a group at Ohio State in 2025.
Trump slammed DeWine in his social media post, calling him a RINO, or Republican in name only, and “disloyal to the Republican Party.” Vice President JD Vance also pushed back against Republicans who knocked the ad, telling them to “stop whining.”
Ramaswamy’s campaign has defended running the ad.
And Trump continued to defend it in comments to reporters as he left the White House Oct. 22 for a campaign rally in Iowa. Asked about the alleged abuse Acton suffered and her long estrangement from her mother, Trump said “I know nothing about it, all I know is the mother said very bad things about Acton.”
Acton’s campaign put out a statement from her brother, Philip Stearns, who criticized the ad and supported Acton’s account of their upbringing, including that they lived in a tent for a period, something Acton’s mother denied in the ad.
“After he was arrested and Amy and I were removed from their custody, our birth mother stayed married to Amy’s rapist until he died,” Stearns said. “This desperate, disgusting attack reveals exactly who Vivek Ramaswamy is at his core – a pathetic excuse for a man who is willing to hurt anyone as long as it gets him what he wants.”
The Ohio governor’s race is among the most contentious midterm contests in the nation. The Real Clear Politics average of recent polls has Acton leading by 3.6 percentage points.
Contributing: Jessie Balmert, Columbus Dispatch
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Trump defends controversial ad in Ohio governor’s race
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