The blame game over the GOP’s midterm drubbing is showing no sign of slowing.
GOP Rep. Mike Turner is pointing the finger at failed Ohio gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy for tanking his reelection bid after 12 terms in Congress.
In a major upset, Turner, 66, was defeated by his Democratic challenger in his reliably red southwestern Ohio district, losing the seat he had held for more than 22 years.
Turner was defeated for the first time since entering Congress in 2002.
Valentyn Ogirenko/REUTERS
Turner’s stunning ouster came as Democrats made sweeping gains nationwide, but the congressman says the ultimate culprit behind his defeat was Ramaswamy’s vile attack ad against his Democratic opponent Amy Acton.
“That final ad from Vivek really was kind of a lightning strike at the end, and it had an impact up and down the ticket in all the races,” Turner told CNN’s Pamela Brown. “An ad like that, certainly at a time in a blue wave where the water level is already high, can have outcomes that are many times unexpected.”
The congressman claimed that many people told him, “I didn’t think you could lose.”
Ramaswamy, who lost to Acton by nearly 8 points, has gone into hiding online and appears to have fled the state and country aboard one of his private jets.
“So you think you lost because of that ad?” Anderson asked.
“I think absolutely that was the margin at the end,” replied Turner, who lost by fewer than 2 percentage points to Rep.-elect Kristina Knickerbocker.
He suggested that people “saw themselves… voting in protest at the end.”
Ramaswamy’s campaign crashed after he ran an attack ad against Acton that featured her mother, Donna Arthur, calling Acton a “liar.”
The ad failed to mention that Arthur lost custody of both her children in the late 1970s while standing by her husband, Cledith Arthur, after he was charged with raping Acton in 1978 when she was a young child.
The ad drew bipartisan backlash, including from Republican Gov. Mike DeWine, but Turner does not appear to have publicly condemned Ramaswamy, 41, before Wednesday.
Ramaswamy, who lost to Acton by nearly 8 points, has gone AWOL since his defeat.
On social media, where he was once among MAGA’s loudest voices, his profiles now say “Account is not actively managed.”
Meanwhile, the pharmaceutical billionaire appears to have fled the state and country aboard one of the private jets he used prolifically on the campaign trail. Accounts tracking his private jets say they spotted one heading toward the Caribbean the day after the election.
While President Donald Trump and his war with Iran have been singled out as major factors in the GOP’s historic losses, Turner appeared unwilling to assign the president any blame.
Asked whether he considered the war with Iran a “mistake,” Turner defended the president, claiming previous administrations failed to rein in Iran’s nuclear ambitions.
He has already filed the paperwork necessary to run again for Congress in 2028, according to the Dayton Daily News.
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