Vivek Ramaswamy launches $4 million ad campaign of controversial video featuring Amy Acton’s estranged mother

By Patrick Svitek, CNN

(CNN) — The campaign of Ohio Republican governor nominee Vivek Ramaswamy is launching a $4 million ad campaign featuring a controversial, viral video of his Democratic opponent’s estranged mom telling voters to reject her.

Ramaswamy’s team confirmed the campaign Tuesday evening, after the video rocketed around the internet and generated fierce pushback from the brother of Ohio Democratic nominee Amy Acton and other Democrats in the state.

The video – which was shared widely on social media, including by the president’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr. – harks back to a painful chapter in Acton’s life. She has said she has not seen her mother since she was about 12 years old, when a man her mother married abused her and faced criminal charges.

“She’s lied her entire life,” Donna Arthur says in the minute-long spot. “My daughter needs help, and she can’t help you if she needs help herself. People can change, but first they have to tell the truth, and my daughter still isn’t doing that.”

Ramaswamy’s campaign initially did not confirm their involvement in the ad Tuesday, saying only that Ohioans “deserve to know” what Acton’s mother says about her daughter. But later in the day, Ramaswamy confirmed, “It is an ad from our campaign.”

The incendiary spot will run on TV and streaming platforms, according to a spokesperson for the Ramaswamy campaign, Connie Luck. Axios first reported the news.

The video was first published on Monday night by an Ohio political blogger, D.J. Byrnes, who is known as “The Rooster.” Byrnes told CNN he obtained the video from a voter who saw it as part of a poll and recorded it.

On Tuesday morning, Acton’s campaign released a statement from her brother, Philip Stearns, denouncing the video and linking it to Ramaswamy.

“It’s not surprising that Vivek Ramaswamy has stooped to such a despicable low as to attempt to turn the sexual abuse Amy endured at twelve years old from our birth mother’s husband into a political talking point,” Stearns said. “After he was arrested and Amy and I were removed from their custody, our birth mother stayed married to Amy’s rapist until he died.”

Later Tuesday, Acton’s campaign released a new ad featuring Stearns making similar points. “Shame on Vivek,” he says in the spot.

When it first circulated, the video did not have the standard disclaimer that political ads carry saying who paid for or authorized them, nor did it show up Tuesday morning as a paid ad in the race on AdImpact, the political ad-tracking service.

And the first Ramaswamy campaign statement from Luck did not address whether it was responsible for the video. It suggested voters should consider the message from Acton’s mother and repeated her attack, asserting that “we know that Amy Acton is a serial fabulist who has some serious problems with the truth that the public needs to be aware of before deciding who to entrust as governor.”

The statement went on to argue that people who know Acton well — including “her own mother” — “are clearly warning Ohioans not to vote for her.”

“Ohioans deserve to know that,” Luck said.

An official with V-PAC, the main super PAC backing Ramaswamy, said it did not make the video. CNN has attempted to contact Arthur for more information about how the video came together.

Ramaswamy was heckled at a campaign event Tuesday evening by a person appearing to cite the viral video. Within seconds of Ramaswamy taking the stage at a Columbus-area town hall, an audience member rose up and began yelling at him, making a reference to “Amy Acton’s mother” and the abuse that the candidate says she suffered from her mother’s husband at a young age.

“Sir, if you want to be patient and you want to ask a question at the end, you’re free to do that,” Ramaswamy said as the man was escorted out. “Thank you for your contribution today.”

Speaking with reporters after the event, Ramaswamy took responsibility for the ad and reiterated that voters should take into account what people who know Acton “well” are saying about her. He said he has never met the mother and that she was “not compensated” for the ad.

Acton herself weighed in during an interview with WOSU Public Media.

“It’s awful to see her this way, and it’s even more incredible to see that my opponent (Ramaswamy) has taken advantage of someone who’s clearly not well, who is older, and this is totally in line with who he is,” Acton said.

Sherrod Brown, the Democratic nominee for Senate in Ohio, said on X that the video was “disgusting” and that his opponent, GOP Sen. Jon Husted, should condemn it. The Democratic Governors Association said in a statement that the video was part of a “relentless smear campaign” that Ramaswamy has waged against Acton.

Acton and Ramaswamy are locked in one of the most competitive governor’s races in the country, vying to replace term-limited Republican Mike DeWine. The ads in the race have been especially nasty, fueling a controversial decision by Acton to decline to debate Ramaswamy. Vice President JD Vance is scheduled to travel to Ohio Wednesday to campaign for Ramaswamy, a source familiar with the matter said.

Acton, the former Ohio public health director, has spoken before about her estrangement from her mother and hardscrabble childhood. In a 2019 interview with the Youngstown Vindicator, she said her mother married a man when she was between ages 9 and 12 who abused her and who faced criminal charges. The family was living in a tent at a campground outside Youngstown at the time.

According to legal documents provided by the Acton campaign, Acton’s allegations against her stepfather emerged in July of 1978 when her father testified to police his daughter was sexually abused by her stepfather. A day later, her stepfather was arrested for rape. He pleaded not guilty but was indicted by a grand jury in September of that year. By October, prosecutors asked for a warrant for his arrest. In the early 1980s, one record shows authorities were still looking for him, but there is no record of any further action in the case.

“I was lucky that it got bad enough, because it got me out of there,” Acton told the Vindicator.

She said the last time she saw her mother was at the courthouse when she tried to give her a kiss and Acton rejected her.

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CNN’s Lauren Fox and Kit Maher contributed to this report.