Vivek Ramaswamy attack ad is so reviled that even CNN’s Scott Jennings blasted it — and Vance’s defense of it

Conservative commentator Scott Jennings has joined the growing chorus of Republican voices denouncing Vivek Ramaswamy for running an attack ad featuring the estranged mother of his Democratic opponent — and blasted Vice President JD Vance for defending it.

Jennings warned that the ad, which dredged up Amy Acton’s traumatic childhood, would “blow up” in the Republican Party’s face and harm Ramaswamy’s chances in the Ohio gubernatorial race. Ohio Governor Mike DeWine is the latest Republican to condemn Ramaswamy for the ad and on Thursday urged him to take it down.

Vance defended Ramaswamy Wednesday, saying he was “disgusted” by GOP backlash and accused Republicans of “whining” about the ad that featured Donna Arthur, Acton’s estranged mother. Arthur lost custody of her children after her husband, Cledith Arthur, was indicted for raping Acton. He was never prosecuted for the rape charge, and the couple fled Ohio.

The ad makes no mention of the family’s past, but featured Arthur smearing her daughter as “a liar.” Jennings berated the vice president Wednesday on CNN’s NewsNight and said that Vance “could’ve just ignored” the issue.

“This issue of whining, I don’t see people whining about this,” Jennings told CNN’s Abby Phillip. “I think they are warning about this. There’s a heck of a lot of Republicans in Ohio and elsewhere who would love to see a Republican get elected governor of Ohio, who do not believe that this is a defensible ad, nor do they believe it’s a good strategy.”

“Whether you take it from the moral view or you take it just from the political strategy view, there’s a lot of concern,” Jennings continued. “That’s not whining. That’s warning.”

“From what I’ve heard from my people in Ohio, it’s warning that this may have actually been a backfire,” the pundit concluded. “It’s gonna blow up in their face.”

Vance complained about his fellow Republicans’ reaction to the ad after a reporter asked him whether he thought it was appropriate to feature Arthur. “I have to admit that I’m a little bit disgusted when I see Republicans across the country who are whining more about that advertisement than they are about what the congressional Democrats and other Democrats want to do to the United States of America,” he said.

But after Ramaswamy and the vice president doubled down on the ad, more Republican figures have spoken out against it.

DeWine, Ohio’s sitting GOP governor, said the ad was “deeply, deeply troubling” and urged Ramaswamy to take it down.

“I want to stay focused on this ad, and I’m still hopeful that they will take this ad down,” he told reporters Thursday, but declined to withdraw his endorsement of Ramaswamy.

Republican Lydia Mihalik, a member of DeWine’s Cabinet, said that the ad had crossed a line in a post on X.

“I don’t have to agree with Amy Acton’s politics to believe that exploiting someone’s childhood trauma is wrong,” Mihalik said. “There are lines we shouldn’t cross, and this is one of them.”

Ohio Republican Sen. Jon Husted said, “I would not have run that ad,” in his campaign against Democrat Sherrod Brown.

Conservative commentator Meghan McCain said the ad was “dastardly” and “never never should have been created.”

Former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley, who ran against Ramaswamy for the Republican nomination in the 2024 presidential primaries, labeled her former opponent “a bad guy,” and added, “It’s a shame he continues to get away with it.”

Dan Hauser, a Republican strategist for Utah Sen. Mike Lee, apologized for sharing the ad on social media. “I posted the video of Amy Acton’s mother without understanding the details behind their relationship and the very serious accusations that caused their issues,” Hauser said.

Privately, GOP strategists lamented the decision to run with the attack ad. “We’ve lost the plot,” a Republican strategist told TIME. “We had a real good chance and then we do this two weeks out.”

“We now deserve to lose this race,” another told the outlet.

On the campaign trail and as the director of the Ohio Department of Health, Acton has discussed what she 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.

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

Arthur has denied that her husband, who died in 2004, sexually abused Acton but acknowledged in a separate 2020 interview that she supported him during the proceedings, borrowed money to hire an attorney — and then left town with him after his indictment.

Alex Woodward contributed to this report