Ohio Republicans’ bus tour unfolds as Ramaswamy ad with Acton’s mother divides party

POWELL, Ohio (AP) — Biotech billionaire Vivek Ramaswamy embarked on a bus tour across Ohio Friday with his fellow Republicans, even as his gubernatorial campaign ad featuring his Democratic rival’s ex-mother, Dr. Amy Acton, sowed growing divisions within his party as they struggle to maintain political control of the state.

With the support of Vice President JD Vance and at the urging of President Donald Trump, Ramaswamy pursued a $4 million campaign to release the ad on streaming platforms and television. During tour stops Friday, he defended him against criticism he said was concocted by Democrats and the media.

“The irony is they’re lying about an ad that’s about lying,” he told a crowd in suburban Cleveland Friday morning. “They change the subject because they don’t want to answer for their own failures.”

The 60-second spot features Acton’s mother, Donna Arthur, calling her daughter a “liar” who “needs help” due to a “serious problem” for being honest about her past. But Arthur hasn’t seen his daughter for almost 50 years. She lost custody of her children after her husband, the children’s stepfather, was indicted for raping Acton when she was 12 years old. Acton, former Ohio state health director, says she hasn’t seen her mother since 1978.

As of Friday, all of Ohio’s permanent governors – two Democrats and three Republicans – had come out against the ad. Former GOP Gov. Bob Taft told Marion radio show host Scott Spears that his great-grandfather, President William Howard Taft, is “probably rolling over in his grave” over the negativity from this year’s election.

He urged Ramaswamy to stop airing the ad, as another Republican colleague, Gov. Mike DeWine, had done a day earlier. “This really goes beyond the bounds of human decency,” he said.

Sen. Husted forced to navigate GOP feuds

U.S. Sen. Jon Husted — who, like Ramaswamy, is in a surprisingly close race against his Democratic opponent, former Sen. Sherrod Brown — shared a stage with Vance on Wednesday without mentioning the controversial ad, then issued a statement shortly after saying he would not have done so. Other statewide candidates toed the same cautious line, not raising the issue when on the same stage as Ramaswamy.

Husted, whose name is on the side of the bus with every other candidate in the state, did not participate in the tour’s first two stops Friday. His campaign said he had scheduling conflicts.

The difference of opinion with Ramaswamy over the ad isn’t the first awkward Republican family feud Husted has had to navigate this cycle, as he strives to hold on to the seat won by Vance in 2022.

In August, Husted called on Republican U.S. Rep. Max Miller to resign and quit as the northeast Ohio congressman faces a congressional ethics investigation related to domestic violence allegations made against him by his ex-wife. Husted’s decision came after Miller’s former father-in-law, U.S. Sen. Bernie Moreno, also a Republican, said his wife’s former husband was unfit to hold elected office.

Democrat Brian Poindexter, a union ironworker and local councilman seeking to unseat Miller, used Moreno’s interview about Miller in attack ads against his Republican opponent. Meanwhile, Miller was quoted in the Wall Street Journal calling Husted — who is vying for one of the most critical Senate seats of the cycle — as “as smart as a box of rocks” and “as entertaining as a two-by-four.”

At a campaign rally in Iowa on Thursday, Trump told the crowd that Ramaswamy called him for advice on advertising.

“You have to deal with it,” Trump recalled telling Ramaswamy, a former 2024 presidential candidate. Trump expressed jealousy that he did not have as strong an ad to run during his own campaigns. He said it was like “getting paid.”

Acton has made no secret that he faced homelessness and abuse as a child. She condemned Ramaswamy for the publicity.

“I won’t normalize someone saying my childhood is just something I complain about.” she told Spectrum News, an Ohio cable news outlet.

According to police and court documents obtained by The Associated Press, Cledith Arthur was arrested and charged with raping her stepdaughter, then 12, in July 1978, after Acton’s biological father reported him to authorities. The abuse allegedly occurred from December 1976 to April 1978.

Cledith Arthur has pleaded not guilty. He was indicted by a grand jury in September, but failed to appear at a court hearing and remained on the run until at least 1981. He has since died.

__

Catalini reported from Morrisville, Pennsylvania.