‘SHAME ON VIVEK’

Dem Star Unleashes Devastating Ad After MAGA’s Vilest Attack

Ohio’s Amy Acton has fired back with a new advertisement of her own, saying Vivek Ramaswamy is “not fit to lead.”

Democrat Amy Acton has hit back with a brutal ad of her own the same day a MAGA candidate announced he will pay to air a controversial attack ad featuring her estranged mother, whom she alleges did nothing after her stepfather raped her.

Acton, running for governor of Ohio against Trump-endorsed Vivek Ramaswamy, has been targeted in a 60-second ad featuring her mother, Donna Arthur, who called her a “liar” and said she “needs help.”

“She says she grew up living in a tent—none of that is true. She’s lied her entire life,” Arthur says, in what even some on the right viewed as an over-the-line attack. “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.”

The Acton campaign responded quickly on Tuesday, releasing a 30-second spot featuring her brother, Phil Stearns, condemning the Republican.

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“I received a lot of abuse, but Amy always got the worst of it,” Stearns says. “She continued to receive that abuse because she knew she had to protect me from that, and if she hadn’t done that, who knows where I would have ended up.”

Searns continues: “She was 11 and 12 years old, and to think that that’s somehow a talking point—shame on Vivek. The contempt he has for Amy is the contempt he has for Ohio. He’s not fit to lead.”

Acton, in a video for the Democratic Governors Association, recalled “a lot of abuse and neglect” growing up in Youngstown, including being “homeless in the middle of winter.”

Acton, 60, told The Vindicator in 2019 that she was sexually abused from ages 9 to 12.

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In 1978, after Acton’s biological father filed a police report, her stepfather was charged with rape, according to a newspaper report cited by The New York Times. Acton’s stepfather was indicted by a grand jury and pleaded not guilty, but fled Ohio before trial, prompting a warrant for his arrest. He died in 2004.

During court testimony, Arthur supported her husband rather than Acton, who testified against him. Arthur and Acton have said they haven’t been in contact since then.

Before releasing Tuesday’s ad, Acton’s campaign released a statement from Stearns.

“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,” he 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,” Stearns added. “This desperate, disgusting attack reveals exactly who Vivek Ramaswamy is at his core - a pathetic excuse for a man who is willing to hurt anyone as long as it gets him what he wants.”

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A Ramaswamy campaign spokesperson deflected.

“We don’t know what happened between Amy and her mother, who first spoke out about Amy in 2020, but 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,” Connie Luck said in a statement.

The Ramaswamy campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment about Acton’s new ad. His campaign, Axios reports, is spending $4 million to air the ad across Ohio.

Polling in Ohio’s gubernatorial race generally shows Acton, a physician who led the Ohio Department of Health during the Covid-19 pandemic, with a slight lead over 41-year-old Ramaswamy, an entrepreneur who founded biotech pharmaceutical company Roivant Sciences.

Acton is leading by seven points in a Marist University poll released Tuesday

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Nonpartisan election forecaster Cook Political Report rates the race a toss-up.

Ramaswamy welcomed Trump to Ohio twice this month, as has Republican Sen. Jon Husted, who is also in a competitive race to hold onto his seat in what was considered a safely red state in the 2024 presidential election.

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