Vance Tells Ohio Republicans to 'Stop Whining' About Ramaswamy Ad Featuring Acton's Mother

Vice President JD Vance came home to Ohio on Wednesday with a message for members of his own party who are uneasy about the most controversial ad of the governor’s race: get over it. Speaking at a press conference in the Cincinnati area on October 21, Vance told Republicans to “stop whining” about a campaign ad from Republican nominee Vivek Ramaswamy that features the estranged mother of his Democratic opponent, Amy Acton, criticizing her daughter and questioning her account of her childhood.

The Cincinnati Enquirer reported that Vance, asked about the ad at the Cincinnati FBI field office in Sycamore Township, declined to say whether it was appropriate. “Politics is a tough business,” he said, according to the Enquirer. “I’m a little bit disgusted when I see Republicans who are whining more about that advertisement” than about who will win the race for Ohio governor. “Whether the ad was appropriate or not is not really my concern,” Vance said. “What is my concern is who’s going to govern the next generation of American government. Who is going to win the Senate race in the state of Ohio, who is going to win the governor’s race in the state of Ohio.”

CNN, which covered the same appearance, quoted Vance’s fuller version of the message: “Politics is a tough business, and my message to my fellow elected Republicans is if you actually believe in the things you say you believe in, stop whining about an advertisement and go win the race in 13 days.” CNN reported that Vance said he was “a little bit disgusted” that some Republicans appeared more outraged about the ad than about Democrats and their policies, and that his remarks appeared to be an attempt to keep the party in line during an especially fraught moment. The press conference, held with law enforcement officials, was formally about the administration’s anti-fraud efforts; the Enquirer reported that Attorney General Todd Blanche said the federal government has uncovered $42 million of fraud in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program since officials began looking more intensely on September 1. Vance was then set to headline a midterm rally at the Sharonville Convention Center with Ramaswamy and Sen. Jon Husted, the Enquirer reported.

The ad, and the history behind it

The spot at the center of the fight is a minute-long video in which Acton’s mother, Donna Stearns Arthur, urges voters not to support her daughter. “She’s lied her entire life,” Arthur says in the video, according to CNN. “My daughter needs help, and she can’t help you if she needs help herself. People can change, but first they have to tell the truth, and my daughter still isn’t doing that.” Acton has said she has not seen her mother since she was about 12 years old. According to the Enquirer, Acton has been estranged from her mother since 1978.

The estrangement is rooted in abuse Acton says she suffered as a child, and every factual claim about it in this story is attributed, because the campaigns are now litigating a family’s worst years in public. Acton has said that a man her mother married abused her when she was between the ages of 9 and 12 and faced criminal charges, CNN reported, citing her 2019 interview with the Youngstown Vindicator. According to legal documents provided by the Acton campaign and reviewed in CNN’s reporting, her allegations emerged in July 1978, when her father testified to police that his daughter was sexually abused by her stepfather; the stepfather was arrested and, in September of that year, indicted by a grand jury after pleading not guilty, and there is no record of further action in the case after authorities were still seeking him in the early 1980s. The Ramaswamy ad questions Acton’s account; her family disputes the ad’s portrayal.

“It’s not surprising that Vivek Ramaswamy has stooped to such a despicable low as to attempt to turn the sexual abuse Amy endured at twelve years old from our birth mother’s husband into a political talking point,” Acton’s brother, Philip Stearns, said in a statement released by her campaign, according to CNN. “After he was arrested and Amy and I were removed from their custody, our birth mother stayed married to Amy’s rapist until he died.” Acton herself told WOSU Public Media, in comments reported by CNN: “It’s awful to see her this way, and it’s even more incredible to see that my opponent (Ramaswamy) has taken advantage of someone who’s clearly not well, who is older, and this is totally in line with who he is.”

How the video spread — and the $4 million decision

The video’s path to Vance’s press conference was not a normal ad launch. CNN reported that it was first published on Monday night by Ohio political blogger D.J. Byrnes, known as “The Rooster,” who said he obtained it from a voter who recorded it after seeing it as part of a poll. It carried no standard paid-for disclaimer when it first circulated, and it spread widely on social media, including via a share by the president’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr. As of the Enquirer’s live coverage on Wednesday, the ad had not aired on television.

That changed on the campaign’s own timetable. CNN reported that after initially declining to confirm its involvement — spokesperson Connie Luck said only that Ohioans “deserve to know” what Acton’s mother says — the Ramaswamy campaign confirmed the spot was theirs on Tuesday, with Ramaswamy telling reporters, in remarks CNN carried, “It is an ad from our campaign.” He said he has never met Arthur and that she was “not compensated” for the ad. The campaign then announced it would spend $4 million to run the spot on TV and streaming platforms, CNN reported, a decision Luck defended by repeating the ad’s attack — Luck said that people who know Acton well are “clearly warning Ohioans not to vote for her.” Ramaswamy was also heckled over the video at a Columbus-area town hall on Tuesday evening, CNN reported.

The fallout Vance was trying to contain

The reaction explains why the vice president felt the need to intervene. Democrats condemned the spot; Sherrod Brown, the Democratic nominee for Senate in Ohio, said on X, in a post CNN reported, that the video was “disgusting” and that Husted should condemn it; the Democratic Governors Association said in a statement, also reported by CNN, that the video was part of a “relentless smear campaign.” Criticism also came from Republicans — CNN reported that Nikki Haley and Meghan McCain were among those critical of the ad — while Ohio Republicans had largely stayed quiet before Vance spoke.

Vance’s Ohio roots are the subtext of the whole trip. The Enquirer noted that he was born and raised in Middletown, Ohio, has owned a home in Cincinnati’s East Walnut Hills neighborhood since 2018, and flew back less than two weeks earlier to vote early at the Hamilton County Board of Elections — his second Ohio trip this month, in a state where his former Senate seat is also on the ballot in Husted’s race against Brown. Acton and Ramaswamy are competing to replace term-limited Republican Gov. Mike DeWine in one of the most competitive governor’s races in the country, CNN reported. With 13 days left, Vance’s calculation was visible in the quote itself: whatever Republicans privately think of the ad, he would rather they spend the remaining days fighting Democrats than each other. Whether Vance’s “stop whining” line reads as discipline or as dismissal will be decided by the same voters now watching a daughter’s childhood become a $4 million television buy.