Ad for Trump-backed Ramaswamy features opponent’s ‘abusive’ mom. The internet is furious

Amy Acton, the Democratic candidate for governor in Ohio, has been estranged from her mother for decades following allegations that her husband sexually abused her daughter, then stood by him in court and allegedly abandoned Acton and her brother.

Acton hasn’t seen or spoken to her mother since that day in court in 1978.

But Acton’s mom resurfaced in a political attack ad from a group supporting Vivek Ramaswamy, the Donald Trump-backed Republican candidate in a closely watched and growingly volatile race.

In the ad, Acton’s mother Donna Arthur tells voters, “Don’t let her become your governor. If you think she’ll make your life better, you’re fooling yourself.”

A statement from Acton’s campaign called the “platforming” of her “estranged and abusive mother” a “despicable low.”

“It’s not surprising that Vivek Ramaswamy has stooped to such a despicable low as to attempt to turn the sexual abuse Amy endured at 12 years old from our birth mother’s husband into a political talking point,” Acton’s brother Philip Stearns said in a statement Tuesday.

“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,” he added.

“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,” Stearns said.

On the campaign trail and as the director of the Ohio Department of Health, Acton has discussed what he has described as a troubled childhood, including surviving homelessness and sexual abuse from her stepfather.

In 2019, she told the Ohio newspaper The Vindicator that she was sexually abused between the ages of 9 and 12, when, in 1978, her stepfather was charged with rape and indicted by a grand jury. He pleaded not guilty.

Arthur, Acton’s mother, has denied that her husband sexually abused Acton but acknowledged in a separate 2020 interview that she supported her husband during the proceedings, borrowed money to hire an attorney — and then left town with him after his indictment.

In the pro-Ramaswamy attack ad, Arthur does not mention her daughter’s allegations of abuse but calls her a “liar” with a “serious problem.”

“She lies about her past,” Arthur says in the ad. “She says she grew up living in a tent. None of that is true. She’s lied her entire life. My daughter needs help, and she can’t help you if she needs help herself.”

In an interview on Tuesday, Acton said she refuses to “normalize” Ramaswamy’s campaign.

“I won’t normalize somebody who says my childhood is something I’m just complaining about, who today just released an ad using my birth mother, who I was removed from, at the age of 12, for severe abuse and neglect and sexual abuse,” Acton told Ohio’s Spectrum News.

“The words our leaders use matter, and I think it’s going to take courage right now from all of us to stop normalizing this sort of rhetoric,” she said of Ramaswamy. “People need to see this is a pattern.”

It’s unclear who is responsible for the ad, which does not include a disclaimer stating who paid for it. In a statement to The Independent, Ramaswamy’s campaign did not distance itself from the ad or claim credit for it.

Ohio Democratic Rep. Greg Landsman called it “one of the most despicable things I’ve ever seen in politics.”

“He’s arguably the most unlikable person in the history of people… because of stuff like this,” he wrote. “By the end of the day, Ohioans will learn what [happened] to Amy as a 12-year old girl, how her mother lost custody of Amy as a result, and what a disgrace Vivek is for pulling this.”

Meghan McCain called the ad “dastardly” and said “it should have been created.”

“Shame on whatever consultant firm created this,” she wrote.

Asked for a response to the backlash, a spokesperson for Ramaswamy’s campaign called Acton a “serial fabulist who has some serious problems with the truth that the public needs to be aware of before deciding who to entrust as governor.”

Connie Luck, a spokesperson for Ramaswamy’s campaign, told The Independent that “everyone who knows her best,” including her mother, “are clearly warning Ohioans not to vote for her.”

“Ohioans deserve to know that,” Luck said in a statement to The Independent.

Prominent Republicans, meanwhile, are celebrating the clip as a decisive bombshell.

Donald Trump Jr., the president’s oldest son, urged people to watch the video and “think about what it means.” Political commentator Dinesh D’Souza wrote that “when you’ve lost mom, it’s pretty safe to say you’ve lost the election.”

Far-right activist Laura Loomer, who has emerged as a close ally to the president, said “screw every Republican” who has condemned the ad and fired off several posts on X defending Ramaswamy. “I am on the side of Amy’s mother,” Loomer wrote Tuesday.

“We are not handing our country over to the radical left because Amy Acton cried rape,” she said. “You want to be in politics, you better be able to take the heat. I don’t care about Amy Acton’s childhood.”

Ramaswamy, who unsuccessfully ran for the Republican presidential nomination in 2024, has never held public office.

The billionaire biotech entrepreneur joined Elon Musk’s crusade to slash federal spending and implement mass firings through the so-called Department of Government Efficiency.

Acton is currently leading Ramaswamy by seven points among likely voters in the state, according to a recent Marist Poll. The Democratic nominee is leading with 50 percent to Ramaswamy’s 43 percent, according to the survey. Among independents, 53 percent support Acton to 34 percent for Ramaswamy.