By Helen Coster
Oct 22 (Reuters) - US Vice President JD Vance on Wednesday defended an explosive attack ad by Republican Vivek Ramaswamy’s campaign against his Democratic rival in the Ohio governor’s race, telling fellow Republicans to "stop whining" about it and go win the race.
The ad features Democrat Amy Acton’s estranged mother, Donna Arthur, disputing Acton’s account of a childhood she says involved a period of homelessness and sexual abuse. Arthur, whom Acton says she has not seen since 1978,
urges Ohioans not to vote for her daughter.
Acton has said she was sexually abused by her stepfather when she was 12. Her mother stayed with the stepfather, who was charged with rape but fled the state and was never tried. He died in 2004. Acton said she and her brother were removed from her mother's custody for severe abuse, neglect and sexual abuse.
Acton's brother has supported her account.
The ad, which has been widely condemned, underscored the incivility of the run-up to the November 3 midterm elections and could backfire on Ramaswamy and other Republican candidates in Ohio, which has moved to the right during Republican Donald Trump's presidential campaigns.
Vance, campaigning with Ramaswamy and Republican US Senator Jon Husted on Wednesday, brushed aside the blowback.
"My message to my fellow elected Republicans is: If you actually believe in the things you say you believe in, stop whining about an advertisement and go win the race in 13 days," Vance said in Cincinnati before attending a rally with Ramaswamy.
The ad initially appeared on social media on Tuesday without identifying its source, but Ramaswamy’s campaign later said it was behind the spot and was spending $4 million to promote it.
“Vivek Ramaswamy had the audacity to run a TV commercial which calls it out like it is and calls Amy Acton a liar,” Vance, who rose to fame on his own story of childhood neglect in Ohio, said at the rally with the candidates.
“And my message, ladies and gentlemen, is very simple. Whatever you think about any of the TV advertisements, focus on the substance and focus on the facts.”
Trump said on Wednesday he knew nothing about the ad.
"It's a very unusual situation to have a mother hate a daughter that much, but I don't think that has anything to do with Vivek," Trump told reporters before leaving the White House to campaign in South Carolina.
'DISGUSTING ATTACK'
Acton's brother, Philip Stearns, said in a statement that Ramaswamy's ad was a "desperate, disgusting attack."
Acton campaign spokesperson Addie Bullock said Ramaswamy's decision to promote the ad was "both despicable and entirely predictable."
As the backlash built on Tuesday, Ramaswamy's campaign spokesperson Connie Luck issued a statement saying: "We don't know what happened between Amy and her mother ... but we know that Amy Acton is a serial fabulist."
Opinion polls show Acton with a narrow lead over Ramaswamy, and the scandal could help cement her position as the favorite in the race, analysts said.
“It was campaign malpractice,” said David Cohen, a political science professor at the University of Akron.
Cohen said it could also mean trouble for Husted, who said in a statement that he would "not have run that ad" and who polls show trailing Democrat Sherrod Brown in a race that will help determine control of the US Senate.
Among Republicans, Cohen predicted, "I think this will either encourage some people to switch parties, or more likely, you're going to have a lot of people staying home" on Election Day.
(Reporting by Helen Coster. Additional reporting by Doina Chiacu in Washington. Editing by Jesse Mesner-Hage, Howard Goller and Xevi Fontdegloria)
