Republican gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy's personal attacks on political foes didn't start in Ohio. Just ask former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley.
Haley called Ramaswamy "scum" during a 2023 GOP presidential debate after Ramaswamy noted Haley's daughter was on TikTok despite Haley's opposition to the app and its ties to China. Years later, Haley's opinion hasn't changed.
"He's a bad guy," Haley wrote on X on Oct. 20. "It's a shame he continues to get away with it."
Now, President Donald Trump-backed Ramaswamy and Democrat Amy Acton are locked in a close race to replace term-limited Gov. Mike DeWine. Neither has been elected to public office before, so they don't have an extensive public policy background to critique.
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Instead, the attacks have been nasty and deeply personal. Ramaswamy is airing an ad that features Acton's estranged mother, Donna Arthur, accusing her daughter of lying about her upbringing. Arthur lost custody of her children after Acton's stepfather was charged with rape for sexually abusing Acton between ages 10 and 12.
The Democratic candidate hasn't spoken to her mother for 48 years, but Ramaswamy touts Arthur as a character witness in the final weeks of the gubernatorial race.
"Regardless of anyone's political beliefs or their profession or if they are visible in the public, experience of abuse shouldn't be exploited," said Taylr Ucker-Lauderman, chief engagement officer for the Ohio Alliance to End Sexual Violence.
Before that, Ramaswamy and his allies used a 2019 domestic dispute between Acton and her husband to allege she had an extensive drinking problem, for which they have provided no evidence. Taken together, Republicans are trying to build a case that Acton lacks the capacity to lead − a line Ramaswamy has repeated frequently.
Ramaswamy says the attacks cut both ways.
Acton's campaign promoted a story that accused Ramaswamy's mother of manipulating clinical trial data on a failed Alzheimer's disease drug in a "pump and dump" scheme. If true, the violation would come with criminal penalties, but Ramaswamy, his family and his businesses were not charged with any crime from the failed bet. PolitiFact called Acton's campaign ad on the issue "mostly false."
"I know that she's told a lot of lies about me during this campaign," Ramaswamy said following a campaign event in Westerville. "She has lied in an unforgivable way, over the course of the last year and a half. That's why I want to debate, to be able to defend my record and to be able to defend my actual positions."
Acton has refused to debate Ramaswamy despite offers from CNN and Cincinnati's WLWT, citing the nastiness of the race.
"My opponent is a serial liar, and he has said and done things in the campaign that are beyond the pale," Acton said during an Oct. 14 editorial board meeting. "I'm just not normalizing this gentleman."
'This race absolutely takes the cake'
Attacks from Acton and her allies are far less personal than the ones Ramaswamy faced from his primary opponent, Republican Casey Putsch. The car enthusiast and YouTuber made personal and racist attacks against Ramaswamy, calling him a Hindu anchor baby and saying that "his real family lineage and loyalties go to India."
Still, the Ohio governor's race has been called the ugliest in the nation.
"This race absolutely takes the cake," said Jessica Taylor, Senate and governors editor for the Cook Political Report. "The personal depths to which this race has now gotten are by far the worst in the country."
The Ramaswamy ad has drawn national attention, but using relatives in ads is nothing new. In Northeast Ohio, Democratic candidate Brian Poindexter aired clips of Republican Sen. Bernie Moreno criticizing his former son-in-law and Poindexter's opponent, Rep. Max Miller. Miller and Moreno's daughter had an acrimonious divorce and public child custody battle that has been front-and-center in Miller's reelection bid.
Six siblings of an Arizona congressmanendorsed his opponent in 2018. Trump's niece Mary Trump has publicly criticized her uncle, even writing a book about the family's "dark history."
Vice President JD Vance chastised the pushback to Ramaswamy's ad during an Oct. 21 visit to Cincinnati, saying he's "a little bit disgusted when I see Republicans who are whining more about that advertisement" than Democrats on the ballot. But other GOP candidates, including Sen. Jon Husted, said they wouldn't have aired it themselves.
Why is this race so personal?
With neither candidate having held elected office, attacks in Ohio's gubernatorial race have become more personal and could "set the tone for mobilization and voter turnout," said Brianna Mack, an associate professor of politics and government at Ohio Wesleyan University.
Acton is trying to criticize Ramaswamy without alienating Republican voters while Ramaswamy is looking for a message that works with base voters in a midterm that favors Democrats, said Mark Caleb Smith, a professor of political science at Cedarville University.
“The Ramaswamy campaign has really nothing else to do but go after her personally,” Smith said. “They can’t run on the positive environment. They can’t run on good economic news. They can’t run on the Republican brand, which is not doing great right now. They can’t even run on Trump, who is hemorrhaging approval ratings. So they just don’t have a lot of cards to play.”
But there's a line for voters when it comes to negative campaigning, and everyone will soon know whether Ramaswamy's ad crossed it.
“What that particular point is is a mystery, and all campaigns are trying to get just to that point and not further down," said Mirya Holman, a professor at the University of Houston's Hobby School of Public Affairs, who has researched attack ads. “As somebody who studies gender and politics, I was like, ‘Oh, this is very gross to me that this is a component of the campaign,' but I don’t know what the effect is going to be on voter attitudes."
Attacking a candidate's capability is often more effective against female candidates, because voters are accustomed to their political leaders being men, Holman said.
“It’s a broad challenge for women who are seeking positions of political power to make sure that voters understand that they have the capacity to be a political leader, and that can be a challenge if voters just generally think political leaders and they think about men," Holman said.
Do these attacks work?
The ad could fire up the Republican base, who already sees Acton as a liar from her time as state health director during the COVID-19 pandemic. Acton advised DeWine on health orders that closed schools, businesses and primary election polls, though DeWine has repeatedly said the buck stops with him.
"I personally was pretty appalled by the content (of the ad)," said Shannon Burns, leader of the Strongsville GOP in Cuyahoga County. "That she's that poor-quality of an individual that even her mom would come out and say that kind of thing about her. It doesn’t surprise me because I know how much she lied to us in 2020. All of Ohio knows that."
But others were appalled for different reasons.
Warren County Commissioner Shannon Jones, a Republican, called it "despicable." Ohio Department of Development Director Lydia Mihalik, who serves in DeWine’s cabinet, said while she may not agree with Acton's politics, “exploiting someone's childhood trauma is wrong.”
“It takes a very weak man to use a woman’s pain just to make himself feel strong,” said Katie Paris, founder of Red, Wine and Blue, a left-of-center advocacy group.
Paris' organization mobilizes suburban women who became more politically active after Trump arrived on the political scene. She contends Ramaswamy's ad will only hurt his candidacy, particularly with suburban women and men who have moved toward Democrats in recent elections.
Others see the ad as a sign that Ramaswamy's campaign is worried. Recent polls show Acton gaining ground on Ramaswamy despite Democrats' yearslong struggle to win statewide office in Ohio.
"This is not the type of ad you run if you’re confident you're winning," said Taylor of the Cook Political Report. "This ad to me reeks of desperation. It's a Hail Mary. Hail Marys, sometimes they win games, but usually they end up at the bottom of the heap."
State government reporter Jessie Balmert can be reached at jbalmert@usatodayco.com or @jbalmert on X. State government reporter Haley BeMiller can be reached at hbemiller@usatodayco.com or @haleybemiller on X.
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Ad with Amy Acton's estranged mom takes nasty governor's race to new depths
