Vivek Ramaswamy was challenged over a controversial campaign advertisement featuring his opponent Amy Acton’s mother, then stood by the decision to run it.
Acton, the Democrat competing against Ramaswamy in Ohio’s gubernatorial race, responded angrily to the commercial, in which her biological mother, Donna Arthur, calls her a “liar.”
Acton countered by releasing a statement from her brother, Phillip Stearns. He alleged that Acton was removed from Arthur’s custody at age 12 because of severe abuse and neglect, as well as sexual abuse by her stepfather.
Ramaswamy is standing by the ad and faced an angry heckler at a town hall Tuesday night in Westerville in video posted by an Acton staffer.
Parts of the man’s comments were inaudible in video clips, but he could be heard shouting, “Why did you run the ad with Amy Acton’s mother?”
He also referred to rape and yelled that “she was 12 years old.” Acton’s stepfather was accused of sexually abusing her when she was 12.
As police approached to remove the protester, Ramaswamy remained relatively composed.
“Sir! Excuse me. Excuse me. You’re going to leave this room if you’re going to do that. Sir. Sir. If you want to be patient and ask a question at the end, you’ll be free to do that,” Ramaswamy said.
Vivek Ramaswamy, pictured, was confronted over a controversial advertisement featuring his opponent Amy Acton’s mother and defended the campaign spot.
Amy Acton, pictured, the Democrat running against Ramaswamy for Ohio governor, condemned a commercial in which her biological mother, Donna Arthur, calls her a “liar.”
The protester was soon escorted out of the town hall.
Ramaswamy’s campaign confirmed late Tuesday that it created the advertisement and plans to spend $4 million broadcasting it, despite bipartisan criticism over its use of Acton’s painful childhood history.
Connie Luck, a spokesperson for the Ramaswamy campaign, said Acton’s mother was not paid for appearing in the one-minute advertisement.
Luck said the commercial would run online and on television during the final days of the campaign.
Throughout Tuesday, Acton denounced Ramaswamy over the advertisement, having already suspected that his campaign was behind the attack.
“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,” Acton told Spectrum News, an Ohio cable news outlet.
She also accused Ramaswamy of a pattern of personal attacks, citing similar allegations made during his campaign for the Republican presidential nomination. “This is a lifelong pattern with my opponent,” she said.
Ramaswamy’s campaign initially released a statement without saying whether he was responsible for the advertisement or knew who had produced it.
Amy Acton’s estranged mother, Donna Arthur, appears in a campaign advertisement urging Ohio voters not to support her daughter.
In the statement, Luck said Acton “has some serious problems with the truth that the public needs to be aware of.”
The woman identifying herself as Donna Arthur, Acton’s mother, says in the advertisement: “She lies about her past… she’s lied her entire life.”
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The elderly woman says at the start of the campaign ad: ‘My name is Donna Arthur, and I’m Amy Acton’s mother.’
‘My daughter needs help, and she can’t help you if she needs help herself,’ she continues.
She then delivers a brutal message to Ohio voters: ‘Don’t let her become your governor.’
Arthur then claims that she loves her daughter but accuses Acton of being a ‘liar’ about her upbringing, and her opponent, Ramaswamy.
‘She lies about her past. She says she grew up living in a tent. None of that is true,’ Arthur claims,’ before adding, ‘She’s lied her entire life.’
In a statement released by Acton’s campaign, her brother, Philip Stearns, said the two were removed from their mother Donna Arthur’s custody as children after their stepfather, Arthur’s husband, was indicted for raping Acton as a child.
Ramaswamy’s team confirmed late Tuesday that it produced the controversial advertisement and the campaign said it will spend $4million to broadcast it despite facing bipartisan rebuke for dredging up Acton’s painful childhood
Acton has not seen Arthur, whose last known address was in Pennsylvania, since they were in a courtroom together in 1978.
Later Tuesday, the Acton campaign released a response ad featuring Stearns, who recalls his older sister taking ‘the worst’ of the abuse they faced as children in order to protect him and disparages Ramaswamy and his allies for exploiting the situation.
According to police and court documents obtained by The Associated Press, Cledith Arthur was arrested and charged with the rape of his stepdaughter, then 12, in July 1978, after Acton’s biological father reported his alleged conduct to authorities.
The abuse allegedly happened from December 1976 to April 1978.
Cledith Arthur pleaded not guilty. He was indicted by a grand jury that September, but failed to show at a court hearing and remained a fugitive until at least 1981. He has since died.
High-profile Republicans who back Ramaswamy – including Donald Trump Jr. and influencer Laura Loomer – elevated the video in online posts.
But other Republicans joined Democrats in condemning the ad. Meghan McCain called it ‘dastardly’ and Dan Hauser, a strategist for Republican Senator Mike Lee of Utah, said he deleted his retweet of the ad once he realized ‘the very serious accusations that caused their issues.’
The Democrat running for Senate in Ohio, Sherrod Brown, described the spot as ‘disgusting’ and said everyone – including his opponent, Sen. Jon Husted – should be willing to condemn it.
Husted’s campaign didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
Acton’s mother does not mention Ramaswamy’s name in the ad, but she suggests that Acton has misrepresented her opponent and the time her family was homeless and living in a tent when she was a child – an experience Stearns corroborates.
Recent polls show Ramaswamy trailing Acton by up to seven points ahead of the November 3 election.
A poll released by Marist University on Tuesday showed Acton leading Ramaswamy with 50 percent of likely voters supporting her, compared to 43 percent who supported him.
Fifty-three percent of independents supported Acton, compared to 34 percent who backed Ramaswamy.
One glimmer of hope for the Republican in the latest Marist Poll was that 49 percent, nearly half of Ohio likely voters, think Ramaswamy will win the election, not Acton, who scored 45 percent on that question.