COLUMBUS, Ohio — When Ann Vance, a 52-year-old teacher, saw the most recent campaign commercial from Republican Ohio gubernatorial hopeful Vivek Ramaswamy, she was so disgusted that she rushed out to vote early in the state’s heavily contested election.
The ad in question — which has drawn widespread and bipartisan condemnation — features Donna Arthur, the estranged mother of Ramaswamy’s opponent, Democrat Amy Acton, accusing her daughter of being a liar who can’t be trusted.
“That made me come vote today for Amy Acton because I thought, ‘What a piece of crap,’ ” said Vance, who said she leans “left” and is no relation to the vice president. “That is such a terrible, lowdown way of approaching any kind of election that I will just respond by going out, putting my vote in faster.”
The commercial was first leaked online to an Ohio political blogger Tuesday, who said he received it from a voter who was shown the ad as part of a purported poll. It was immediately elevated by conservative social media voices, but also prompted swift backlash because of its unspoken backstory: Acton was removed from her mother’s custody at age 12 after accusing her mother’s husband of sexual abuse. The husband was criminally charged, according to Acton, court records, and news reports her campaign provided to The Washington Post.
The couple left the area and he was never brought to trial before his death, despite warrants for his arrest, while Acton went to live with her father. She has had no further contact with her mother.
But Ohio voters from both sides of the political aisle who spoke Wednesday outside a polling station said the fallout hasn’t changed their minds; it’s only cemented their choice.
Debbie Katz, a Republican from Bexley, who voted for Ramaswamy, said she’s taking the validity of the ad “with a grain of salt.”
Katz already had a negative perception of Acton, because of the Democratic candidate’s enforcement of COVID vaccine mandates during her stint directing the Ohio Department of Health.
Her friend and fellow Republican, Sue Breidenbach, said the ad “really didn’t change our minds,” adding, “if it was a true issue, [Arthur] would have done it sooner. This is the last minute.”
With the general election less than two weeks away and Republicans facing tough challengers across many competitive states, Vice President JD Vance has been deployed across the country to rally the GOP electorate around the midterms, which traditionally see lower voter turnout than presidential elections.
And on Wednesday, the vice president was in his home state of Ohio, where he defended the ad during two public appearances, one of which was a rally in support of Ohio Republicans including Ramaswamy, his former classmate at Yale Law School.
At an unrelated news conference at a Cincinnati FBI field office regarding fraud enforcement efforts, Vance first told any Republicans who objected to the ad to hold their tongues.
“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,” Vance said in response to questions about how he viewed the ad. “Politics is a tough business, and 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.”
Then, at the rally, Vance lamented the attention being paid to the ad and sought to pivot the conversation to GOP political talking points.
“Vivek Ramaswamy had the audacity to run a TV commercial which calls it out like it is and calls Amy Acton a liar,” Vance said, saying Democrats have “throw[n] every dirty trick in the political book at Vivek.”
Vance also seemed to mock the outcry over the ad.
“I don’t want to be too mean, when you’re mean to Amy Acton, she sics the American media . . . after you,” Vance said. “But you know I think, that a person who is more worried about whether somebody says something mean about them, that person can never serve in the governor’s mansion of the great state of Ohio.”
It was initially unclear who had created the ad; the circulated video did not have the typical disclaimer required by law for political advertisements, and no one took credit for it.
Ramaswamy’s campaign first sidestepped questions about its origins. But it swiftly drew bipartisan rebuke, and Acton spoke against it, releasing a statement from her brother also decrying it.
Meghan McCain, daughter of late Republican Senator John McCain, who himself faced notoriously underhanded political attacks, condemned the ad quickly.
“This is a dastardly ad,” she wrote on X. “It never should have been created. Shame on whatever consultant firm created this.”
Late Tuesday, however, Ramaswamy’s campaign confirmed it had produced the ad. His campaign will spend $4.5 million to broadcast it in every Ohio media market.
Acton’s campaign sharply criticized the decision to air the ad.
“Vivek Ramaswamy investing $4 million to run a repulsive advertisement that gives star billing to Dr. Acton’s abusive mother is both despicable and entirely predictable,” campaign spokesperson Addie Bullock said in a statement. “Ramaswamy is showing Ohio exactly who he is — a self-serving billionaire who will do or say anything for his own gain, no matter who he harms along the way.”
It was the latest nasty turn in a campaign that has been bitter and proven to be highly competitive.
Kevin Morhman of Columbus said the advertising tactics being used are out of character for Ohio political races.
“I started following politics right after I was 8 years old, when President Kennedy got assassinated,” said the 71-year-old Morhman, adding that politically he “never leaned one party” before Trump. “I’ve never seen something so pathetic as what I’m seeing from [Ramaswamy’s ad]. That was something that the old Republican Party would have just shut down themselves.”
Though Ohio has been a solidly red state for several election cycles, both Acton and Democratic former Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown have run stronger than expected campaigns against Ramaswamy and the Republican incumbent senator, Jon Husted, respectively. A poll also released Tuesday from Marist had Acton leading among likely voters by 7 percentage points and Brown leading by 4 points.
A Brown victory could be key to Democrats’ hopes of flipping the Senate, while the governorship would only affect state control. Still, an Acton victory in such a historically red state, and against a former Republican presidential candidate, would speak loudly to the views of the national electorate and President Trump’s flagging approval ratings.
Husted, for his part, distanced himself from the Ramaswamy spot, telling the Associated Press in a statement: “I would not have run that ad.”
Julian E.J. Sorapuru can be reached at julian.sorapuru@globe.com. Follow him on X @JulianSorapuru. Tal Kopan can be reached at tal.kopan@globe.com. Follow her @talkopan.