SPIRALING

MAGA Candidate Dealt Humiliating Blow After Sick Ad

The Trump-endorsed Vivek Ramaswamy, already trailing in the polls, has been dealt yet another setback.

The newspaper serving Ohio’s most populous city has condemned Vivek Ramaswamy’s “sinister” ad featuring Amy Acton’s mother in its endorsement of the Democratic gubernatorial candidate.

The editorial board of The Columbus Dispatch called out Ramaswamy’s “reckless behavior” after the Trump-endorsed Republican revealed he will pay $4 million to air an attack ad that has drawn bipartisan outrage.

In the ad, Acton’s estranged mother, Donna Arthur, accuses her of being a “liar” regarding her claims of a troubled childhood—a charge that brought into the spotlight Acton’s alleged rape by her stepfather, whom Arthur defended instead of her own daughter.

The Acton campaign fired back at Ramaswamy, 41, on Tuesday with its own ad, in which Acton’s brother calls the Republican “unfit to lead.”

A day later, the capital city daily announced it has seen enough from Ramaswamy, who in April said that Ohio needs a candidate with “a positive vision for our state versus a governor who has none at all other than to complain about what someone else did to her.”

“Most revolting and unsettling is a new ‘October surprise’ ad created by Ramaswamy’s campaign and posted on social media,” Dispatch Opinion Editor Amelia Robinson wrote on behalf of the editorial board. “It should go without saying that sexual violence against children should not be politicized or taken as lightly as Ramaswamy appears to take it.”

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The Ramaswamy-created ad featuring Acton’s estranged mother has resurfaced her stepfather’s disturbing actions. In a statement shared on Facebook on Tuesday, Acton, 60, alleged that her stepfather repeatedly raped her as a child. She says her mother failed to intervene.

“Between the ages of 10 and 12, I was sexually abused by her husband, while my birth mother did nothing to protect me,” she wrote.

After Acton’s stepfather was charged and indicted for rape in 1978, Acton testified in court against him. Her mother, however, stood by him. She subsequently lost custody of Acton and her brother. The two women have been estranged since that day.

Acton’s stepfather jumped bail, fled the state, and died in Pennsylvania in 2004, without ever being tried.

In the Acton campaign’s 30-second response ad, her brother, Phil Stearns, describes their past.

“I received a lot of abuse, but Amy always got the worst of it,” Stearns says. “She continued to receive that abuse because she knew she had to protect me from that, and if she hadn’t done that, who knows where I would have ended up.”

Stearns continues: “She was 11 and 12 years old, and to think that that’s somehow a talking point—shame on Vivek. The contempt he has for Amy is the contempt he has for Ohio. He’s not fit to lead.”

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The Dispatch editorial also takes issue with another ad against Acton, a physician who served as director of the Ohio Department of Health during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“The $90 million attack ad campaign by a super PAC working on Ramaswamy’s behalf attempts to paint Acton as a deranged woman who cried in the office during the COVID pandemic - a heartbreaking and uncertain time,” the board writes. ”The ads and smear campaign shame her for seeking therapy to deal with the trauma of child sexual assault and attempt to portray an argument with her husband as evidence of drug and alcohol abuse."

The board goes on, saying there are other reasons Ramaswamy is unfit to govern Ohio. It cites his “slash-and-burn approach” to the federal government through his association with the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, and says that cuts to state government could be “devastating” to the local economy.

Ramaswamy, it continues, would most likely rubber-stamp the “harmful legislation that oozes from the Statehouse,” which Republicans control. Acton, on the other hand, would provide a needed check on the GOP’s power.

“Ohio does not need more chaos,” the board writes. “It needs balance and a champion who will work. Of the two candidates on the Nov. 3 ballot, Acton best fits that bill.”

The Ramaswamy campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment. He has generally been trailing Acton in polls, including a Marist poll released Tuesday that shows Acton leading by 7 points.

Vice President JD Vance was in Ohio on Wednesday to try to boost Ramaswamy. Part of that involved defending the problematic ad about Acton and criticizing Republicans who have said it crossed the line.

“Now the media and the Democrats in the state of Ohio are obsessed because guess what? Vivek Ramaswamy had the audacity to run a TV commercial, which calls it out like it is and calls Amy Acton a liar,” he told a rally crowd.

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Those comments came after Vance fielded a question earlier in the day about whether the ad was “appropriate.” Vance said that “is not really my concern.”

He added later: “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.”

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