Ramaswamy's Ad Attacking Acton's Estranged Mother Goes Off the Air Days Before Ohio Vote

Republican Vivek Ramaswamy's campaign for Ohio governor confirmed Thursday that it has stopped airing a television ad featuring the estranged mother of his Democratic opponent, Dr. Amy Acton, ending a controversy that drew condemnation from members of both parties five days before the Nov. 3 general election.

Ramaswamy, speaking to reporters at a campaign stop in Vandalia, said the 30-second spot "ran to completion" and that his campaign had already moved on to other advertising. "It ran to completion, and we've put up four other ads," he said, according to NBC News. The framing was a departure from nearly ten days of public defiance, during which the campaign had said repeatedly it would not pull the spot.

What the ad said, and what it left out

The ad featured Donna Arthur, who identified herself as Acton's mother, telling viewers her daughter was "a liar" and urging Ohioans not to vote for her. It did not mention why the two have been estranged. According to reporting by the PBS NewsHour and the Associated Press, Arthur lost custody of Acton and her brother in 1978, after her then-husband, Cledith Arthur, was indicted on a charge of raping Acton when she was 12 years old. He fled the state before he could be tried, and his wife left with him. Acton has said she has not seen her mother since. Her brother, Phillip Stearns, has corroborated the account of abuse in the household, telling Ohio's Statehouse News Bureau, "I received a lot of abuse, but Amy got the worst of it."

Ramaswamy's campaign initially ran a 60-second version of the ad before cutting it to 30 seconds. The Statehouse News Bureau reported that the shorter cut dropped a line accusing Acton of fabricating a story about having grown up in a tent, leaving a narrower claim that she is dishonest. Ramaswamy has argued the backlash is driven by the media and has separately accused Acton of spreading "slanderous" claims about his business record, allegations she denies.

Who the candidates are

Acton, a physician, served as director of the Ohio Department of Health under DeWine beginning in 2019 and became a prominent public face of the state's early coronavirus response in 2020, when her daily briefings drew national attention. She resigned from that post later that year and entered the 2026 governor's race as the Democratic nominee, running on health care, child care and economic affordability. Ramaswamy, a biotechnology entrepreneur who ran unsuccessfully for the Republican presidential nomination in 2024 and briefly helped lead the Trump administration's Department of Government Efficiency initiative, entered the Ohio race in February and secured Trump's endorsement. He has made public safety, tax cuts and opposition to what he calls "woke" policy central to his campaign.

The numbers behind the ad buy

Ramaswamy's campaign had said it planned to spend roughly $4 million airing the spot statewide. Tracking by the ad-monitoring firm AdImpact, cited by the Associated Press, put actual spending at closer to $1 million before the campaign ended the run this week. The discrepancy suggests the ad came down well short of its original budget, though the campaign has not said whether money was redirected or simply unspent.

The ad surfaced in the final stretch of a governor's race that independent handicappers and public polling have treated as competitive. Both campaigns are seeking to succeed term-limited Republican Gov. Mike DeWine, whose name appears on the certified candidate list published by the Hamilton County Board of Elections alongside Ramaswamy, Acton and third-party contenders for the Nov. 3 ballot.

Reaction split, with one notable exception

DeWine, who endorsed Ramaswamy, called the ad "deeply, deeply troubling" and said the campaign "needs to take it down" — while making clear he was not withdrawing his endorsement. Sen. Jon Husted, also a Republican, said he would not have run the ad. The Associated Press reported that thousands of alumni of Ramaswamy's Cincinnati high school, St. Xavier, signed a petition asking him to pull it.

President Trump broke with fellow Republicans, telling reporters Acton's mother was "fair game" and that he had urged Ramaswamy to keep the ad on the air; Vice President JD Vance likewise defended airing it. Trump accused DeWine of being "disloyal to the Republican Party" for criticizing the spot.

Acton's campaign said the decision to stop airing the ad came without an apology. A spokeswoman, Addie Bullock, said Ramaswamy "should never have run his despicable ad in the first place," according to NBC News. Acton herself addressed the controversy directly with reporters.

"I think it is despicable," Acton said, adding that the episode has left her "learning things even about my childhood" she did not previously know.

What's next

The ad's removal does not end the dispute. Acton has declined to participate in a televised debate with Ramaswamy, calling him a "scam artist" who has made baseless claims about her and her family — a charge his campaign denies. Both campaigns' own sites, Vivek for Ohio and Dr. Amy Acton for Governor, continue to post daily schedules and rebuttals as the race heads into its final days.

With early voting already underway across Ohio and Election Day five days off, neither campaign has signaled it intends to change its closing message. Ramaswamy has continued to campaign alongside national Republican figures, while Acton has kept her focus on health care and the economy. The outcome carries weight beyond Columbus: a Ramaswamy win would hand Republicans an open-seat governorship in a state the party has controlled for more than a decade, while an Acton victory would mark Ohio Democrats' first statewide executive win since 2006 and would be read nationally as a rebuke of the closing message of Trump's party heading into the 2026 midterms. Whether the ad's removal eases or prolongs the controversy in the campaign's final days is, for now, an open question that voters — not the campaigns — will settle at the polls.