Republican Vivek Ramaswamy's campaign confirmed late Tuesday that it produced a controversial advertisement featuring Amy Acton's estranged mother, and said it plans to spend $4 million promoting the video despite facing widespread bipartisan criticism. The advertisement, which surfaced on social media on Oct. 19, features Acton's birth mother, Donna Arthur, calling her daughter "a liar" and insinuating she has mental health issues.
Acton, Ohio's former public health director and the Democratic nominee for governor, has been open about facing homelessness and abuse as a child. She was removed from her mother's custody at age 12 after her stepfather, Cledith Arthur, was arrested and charged with raping her. Court documents show Cledith Arthur was indicted by a grand jury in September 1978, but he and Donna Arthur left town before trial and he remained a fugitive until at least 1981. Cledith Arthur died in 2004. Acton has not seen or spoken to her mother since a court appearance following the arrest, which she has said occurred in 1978.
The one-minute video's origins were initially unclear. It first circulated in a post by an Ohio political blogger known as "The Rooster," who told CNN he received it from a voter. The video initially did not include the "paid for" tag legally required for television advertisements. Connie Luck, a spokesperson for Ramaswamy's campaign, confirmed that Ramaswamy's team produced the advertisement and said Acton's mother was not paid for her appearance.
Acton condemned the advertisement even before Ramaswamy's campaign confirmed its involvement. "I won't normalize somebody who has said that my childhood is just something I'm 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," she told Spectrum News on Tuesday. She characterized the attack as part of a pattern, noting that Ramaswamy made similar personal attacks during his 2024 run for the Republican presidential nomination.
The advertisement has drawn rebuke across party lines. Casey Putsch, a car designer and YouTube provocateur who competed against Ramaswamy for the Republican nomination for governor, said on social media that he would vote for Acton in response to the ad's release, calling it "pretty damn low." Acton's campaign released a statement from her brother, Philip Stearns, who recalled that his older sister bore "the worst" of the abuse they experienced as children in order to protect him, and criticized Ramaswamy and his allies for exploiting the situation.
According to fact-checking by Factcheck.org, court documents, contemporaneous news articles, and statements by Acton's brother corroborate key elements of Acton's account of her difficult childhood. A 2019 profile in the Youngstown Vindicator documented her descriptions of living in a tent at a campground outside Youngstown and cycling through different homes. In her mother's ad, Donna Arthur disputes these claims, saying her daughter "lies about her past" and never lived in a tent.
The race is considered competitive, according to the Cook Political Report. More than 676,000 voters in Ohio had already cast ballots when the advertisement surfaced, with two weeks remaining until Election Day. As of Oct. 20, an ad tracking service called AdImpact showed only $2,116 had been spent airing the advertisement, though the campaign said it intended to spend $4 million promoting it.
