Ohio governor's race turns ugly as attack ad features candidate's estranged mother

The race to be Ohio's next governor has turned ugly amid uproar over one of the most viral attack ads of the midterm elections campaign.

Republican candidate Vivek Ramaswamy released an ad featuring his opponent's estranged mother urging Ohioans not to elect her daughter.

"She's lied her entire life," Donna Arthur says in the video.

But the ad leaves out that her daughter, Democratic candidate Amy Acton, alleged she was raped by Arthur's husband 40 years ago when she was just 12.

Acton's brother said turning alleged sexual assault into "a political talking point" was a "despicable low". Experts told the BBC that the jarringly personal nature of the political attack will likely backfire.

Acton and her brother were removed from their mother's custody when her stepfather, Cledith Arthur, was arrested and charged in 1978.

That's when she last spoke to her mother, Acton said in an interview with The Vindicator, an Ohio news outlet. The Arthurs fled Ohio, and he was never prosecuted on the rape charge. He died in 2004.

Political attacks ads are not a new feature of US politics, but they have grown more coarse, experts say.

"They have become more intense, and the boundaries have stretched in terms of what one attacks about," said David Lublin, a professor from American University's School of Public Affairs.

Lublin also said it was not new for relatives to be used against a political opponent, mentioning family members who testified against Robert F Kennedy Jr before he was confirmed as health secretary.

"But this is of a different order," Lublin said. "They're estranged not over policy but over a rape allegation."

The BBC has reached out to Ramaswamy's campaign for comment. In a statement to the BBC's US partner, CBS News, a campaign spokesman reiterated assertions in the ad that Acton was untruthful, but conceded, "We don't know what happened between Amy and her mother".

When the ad was initially released to social media on Monday evening, it did not say who the video was paid for or authorised by. But Ramaswamy confirmed on Tuesday that it came from his campaign, and he later pledged to spend $4m (£2.9m) to further air it.

The move drew intense backlash from Democrats.

New York Governor Kathy Hochul said on X it was "an abhorrent attack". Illinois governor and 2028 presidential hopeful JB Pritzker said Ramaswamy "has reached a new low by launching these vile and false attacks".

Acton's team released its own campaign ad on Tuesday, a video featuring her brother, Philip Stearns, recounting childhood abuse and saying "Amy always got the worst of it".

"Shame on Vivek," he says in the 30-second clip. "It's the contempt he has for Amy. It's the contempt he has for Ohio."

Some Republicans also criticised the ad. Nikki Haley, who ran against Ramaswamy for the Republican nomination for president in 2024, said "he's a bad guy. It's a shame he continues to get away with it".

Vice-President JD Vance, when asked by the BBC if he thought the ad was appropriate, did not say. "It's not really my concern," he said. "What is my concern is who's going to govern the next generation of American government."

Lublin said President Donald Trump's rhetoric and campaigns have helped act as a catalyst for the coarsening of American political discourse - he mentioned when Trump appeared to mock a reporter in Ohio who had a disability.

"We live in an age where certainly many candidates can appear mean and even inappropriate at times," Lublin said.

"The key purpose of attack ads isn't necessarily to convert the followers of your opponent, but more to depress their turnout," he said.

But Lublin expects the Ramaswamy attack ad to backfire. He said it could be an indication that his campaign is desperate to swing momentum in his favor in the increasingly competitive race for Ohio governor - even though a Democrat has not been elected governor there in over two decades.

Cook Political Report, a nonpartisan website that rates and tracks US elections, has moved the Ohio governor's race from "leans Republican" to "toss up".

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