JD Vance praised Vivek Ramaswamy on Wednesday in Cincinnati for a TV ad that used Amy Acton’s estranged mother to accuse her of lying about her past and the hardship she said she endured growing up. The praise from Vance landed after the spot had already ignited bipartisan outrage and pushed a painful family dispute into the center of an Ohio race that is now less than two weeks from Election Day.
The ad features Donna Arthur saying she loves her daughter but that “Amy has a serious problem.” It is the latest flash point in a campaign that has turned intensely personal, and it is the reason the Amy Acton mom ad has become a search term far beyond Ohio politics. Acton has said she has not spoken to her mother since she was 12 years old, and she has described the commercial as “a horrible and hideous thing to do.”
Ramaswamy said on Tuesday that his campaign had made the ad and said he wanted the race to be about “substantive issues.” Vance went even further on Wednesday, calling it the “biggest controversy” and saying Ramaswamy had “the audacity to run a TV commercial which calls it out like it is and calls Amy Acton a liar.” He also argued that voters should “focus on the substance and focus on the facts,” then added that Acton was “the woman who tried to mask your children.”
Acton answered at a campaign event in Wyandot County on Wednesday, calling the ad “horrible and hideous,” “exploitative,” and “despicable.” Her campaign also released a response ad featuring her brother, Philip Stearns, who said, “Shame on Vivek,” and accused him of contempt for his sister and for Ohio. That back-and-forth shows how quickly the race has moved from policy to personal attack, with each side trying to define the other before voters do.
What makes the ad especially raw is that Acton has publicly described abuse in her childhood. She has said her mother’s second husband molested her between the ages of 9 and 12, that charges were filed against him, and that she testified against him. Donald Trump was asked about the ad on Wednesday and said he knew “nothing about it” before later calling it “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.”
Ohio officials are reviewing complaints about the ad, but the political damage is already done. With the state heading into a crowded and closely watched stretch of races, the question now is not whether the spot drew attention; it is whether the campaign that aired it can keep the fight on the terrain Ramaswamy and Vance want, or whether the backlash over Acton’s mother will keep swallowing everything else.
