Vice President J.D. Vance on Wednesday defended Vivek Ramaswamy’s controversial ad featuring his opponent’s mother in the Ohio gubernatorial race.
Mr. Vance, rallying in Sharonville, shamed those who have criticized Mr. Ramaswamy’s new ad, in which Donna Arthur, the estranged mother of Democratic nominee Amy Acton, accused Ms. Acton of fabricating claims of abuse.
“Now the media and the Democrats in Ohio are obsessed because — guess what — Vivek Ramaswamy had the audacity to run a TV commercial which calls it out like it is and calls Amy Acton a liar,” Mr. Vance said.
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Asked earlier about the ad during an event at the FBI field office in Cincinnati, Mr. Vance shamed fellow Republicans for “whining.”
“Whether the ad was appropriate or not is not really my concern,” he said. “I have to admit that I’m a little bit disgusted when I see Republicans across the country who are whining more about that advertisement than they are about what the … Democrats want to do to the United States of America.”
Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, a Republican, called Mr. Ramaswamy a “bad guy” on social media after news of the ad broke.
Mr. Vance first met Mr. Ramaswamy when the two were studying at Yale Law School.
The ad in question features Ms. Arthur denying Ms. Acton’s claim that “she overcame periods of abuse, hunger and neglect, and even wound up living in a tent in the middle of winter.”
Ms. Arthur says in the ad, “None of that is true. She’s lied her entire life. My daughter needs help, and she can’t help you if she needs help herself.”
She continues, “People can change, but first they have to tell the truth, and my daughter still isn’t doing that. Don’t vote for people who lie. Don’t let her become your governor.”
Ms. Acton has said that her mother’s husband sexually abused her as a child and that she moved in with her father and lost contact with her mother.
Ms. Acton accused the Ramaswamy campaign of crossing the line with the ad.
“It’s awful to see her this way, and it’s even more incredible to see that my opponent has taken advantage of someone who is clearly not well, who is older,” Ms. Acton said in an interview with WOSU News.
The Ramaswamy campaign did not shy away from the ad and spent money to air it digitally after the initial controversy broke out.
When asked about the ad on Tuesday, Mr. Ramaswamy said he was holding Ms. Acton to account for “spreading some defamatory, disparaging lies about me and my family.”
Axios reported Tuesday that the Ramaswamy campaign intends to invest $4 million to air the ad.
The Cook Political Report, a political forecaster, rates Ohio’s gubernatorial race a toss-up.
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