Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine, a Republican, called Thursday on Vivek Ramaswamy, his party’s nominee to succeed him, to take down a widely criticized attack ad featuring the estranged mother of his Democratic opponent, Dr. Amy Acton.
It was a rare public rebuke of the campaign, which rejected his criticism and said it would keep running the ad, and put the governor at odds with Vice President JD Vance, another Ohio Republican, who told members of his party on Wednesday to “stop whining” about it.
“The ad, on its face, is deeply, deeply troubling,” Mr. DeWine told reporters on Thursday, and spoke about his work with rape and sexual assault survivors as a former prosecutor. He added, “It’s wrong to run this ad.”
The television spot from Mr. Ramaswamy’s campaign began airing a week ago. In it, Donna Arthur, Dr. Acton’s birth mother, calls her daughter a “liar” and says that she fabricated stories about her difficult childhood.
Mr. DeWine, said that in his experience working with Dr. Acton in state government, where she led the Ohio health department’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic, “she certainly told the truth.”
A grand jury in 1978 indicted Ms. Arthur’s husband — Dr. Acton’s stepfather — on charges of raping Dr. Acton, who was then a child, according to documents provided by the Acton campaign. The mother and daughter both say they have not spoken since that year, when Ms. Arthur lost custody of her daughter.
The stepfather, Cledith Arthur, pleaded not guilty, and then fled the state before trial, according to the court records. He died in Pennsylvania in 2004.
In his comments, Mr. DeWine declined to rescind his support of Mr. Ramaswamy and the rest of the Republican ticket, saying, “I did my endorsement a few months ago.” But he noted that campaign ads have reached “a new low” this year.
He said that family members should be “off limits,” and also chided the Acton campaign for issuing a news release that drew attention to the work that Mr. Ramaswamy’s mother, a doctor, had done as part of one of his business ventures. “But,” Mr. DeWine added in reference to the Ramaswamy ad, “this is on T.V., with $4 million behind it.”
Mr. Ramaswamy’s campaign dismissed Mr. DeWine’s call to stop running the ad, in a response that focused on the Acton campaign’s news release and called criticism of the attack ad a double standard. “Voters shouldn’t buy it,” said Connie Luck, a spokeswoman for the Ramaswamy campaign.
A series of Democrats and Republicans in Ohio have condemned the Ramaswamy ad this week. Several national Republican figures also stepped in to criticize it, including the former governors Chris Christie of New Jersey and Nikki Haley of South Carolina, who competed against Mr. Ramaswamy in the 2024 Republican presidential primary.
Dr. Acton’s brother, Philip Stearns, also condemned the ad and said his sister had been the victim of their stepfather’s physical and sexual abuse for years.
Early on Thursday morning, former Representative Jim Renacci, an Ohio Republican, suggested that Mr. Ramaswamy had hurt his prospects of winning the governor’s race by airing the ad. He also said that “sympathy can become a powerful political force” when “voters believe someone has been treated unfairly.”
“Elections aren’t won simply by convincing voters that your opponent is worse,” Mr. Renacci wrote in a post on X. “They’re won by convincing voters that you’re better.”
Mr. Ramaswamy’s campaign plans to spend $4 million to air the ad in Ohio.
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