Ad featuring opponent's mother calling her 'a liar' stirs backlash in Ohio governor's race

Internal Republican polling shows ad backfiring; separate survey suggests it narrowed the gap

Donald Trump defends ad as 'a totally legitimate attack,' says he told campaign to keep running it

Vivek Ramaswamy, the Republican candidate for Ohio governor. [Getty Images]

A controversial negative ad featuring the estranged mother of a Democratic gubernatorial candidate appears to be generating backlash against the Republican side in the Ohio governor's race — though competing polling data complicate the picture.

According to internal Republican midterm polling obtained by Axios on Wednesday (local time), Republican gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy trailed Democratic candidate Amy Acton by 8 percentage points, Yonhap reported.

Before the ad began circulating, Ramaswamy had trailed Acton by just 2 percentage points on Oct. 19 — a margin within the polling error. The gap has since widened considerably.

The ad, produced months ago, features Donna Arthur, Acton's mother, from whom Acton has been estranged for years. Arthur says in the spot: "As a mother, it's not easy to say this, but my daughter is a liar."

The ad drew sharp criticism after it emerged that Acton had suffered sexual abuse and other mistreatment at the hands of a stepfather during childhood, and had been separated from Arthur and the stepfather at age 12 as a result. Critics accused the Ramaswamy campaign of exploiting a mother who had subjected her daughter to childhood trauma.

Concerns about the ad had reportedly been raised within the Ramaswamy campaign itself, but Ramaswamy pushed ahead with its production.

The campaign committed $4 million to air the ad statewide.

In the internal Republican poll, 86 percent of the 800 respondents said they were aware of the ad. The share of respondents who said the ad made them more likely to vote for Acton was nearly double the share who said it did not.

A Republican official who reviewed the results told Axios that "Vivek's ad has put every Republican candidate in Ohio on the defensive" and that Ramaswamy "better hope Ohio doesn't become the state that decides the Senate majority."

Republican Sen. Jon Husted, who trails Democratic candidate Sherrod Brown within the margin of error, said he would not have run the ad.

A separate poll points in a different direction. A Suffolk University survey found that Ramaswamy, who had trailed Acton by 9 percentage points late last month, closed the gap to 4 points after the ad ran.

Vice President JD Vance, Ohio's former senator, took aim at Republicans who expressed reservations about the ad, telling them to "stop whining."

Trump: 'I told them to keep running the ad'

US President Donald Trump. [Getty Images]

Donald Trump also weighed in Friday (local time), calling the ad "a totally legitimate attack."

Speaking to reporters as Trump left the White House for Florida, Trump said Arthur "said her daughter was a disaster. She said her daughter was a liar. And she felt obligated to say it." Trump added that Arthur had also said Acton lied about Ramaswamy, Acton's opponent, Yonhap reported at the time.

"If I had an ad like that, I would have been very lucky," Trump said. "I don't know about things that happened a long time ago" — referring to the stepfather's alleged abuse — "but what I do know is that a mother went on television and said her daughter should not be governor of Ohio."

On Wednesday, Trump returned to the subject on Truth Social, writing that "a daughter whose mother speaks about her that way usually doesn't get to hold public office, let alone become governor." Trump added: "I told them to keep running the ad so that everyone could hear a mother of a flawed, dishonest and incompetent candidate tell the world what a disaster her daughter is."

Ohio is one of the competitive battlegrounds in the November midterm elections.

Meanwhile, Trump also attacked Abdul El-Sayed, the Democratic Senate candidate in Michigan — another contested state — calling him "a jihadist" affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood.

The claim that El-Sayed is linked to the Muslim Brotherhood originates solely from Republican rival Mike Rogers. El-Sayed has flatly denied any affiliation with the group and said he does not support it.

yul@heraldcorp.com