When a video featuring Amy Acton’s estranged birth mother surfaced online on Tuesday, Donna Arthur spoke directly to Ohio voters and dismissed the Democratic candidate’s account of her childhood. Acton, a former state health director running for governor, was removed from Arthur’s custody at 12 after her stepfather was indicted for raping her.
Arthur said, “I love my daughter,” before calling Acton a liar and saying she had a “serious problem”. She also said: “She says she grew up living in a tent. None of that is true.” Arthur urged voters: “Don't vote for people who lie. Don't let her become your governor.”
Vivek Ramaswamy, Acton’s Republican opponent, is a biotech entrepreneur and former 2024 GOP presidential candidate. His campaign confirmed it produced the one-minute advertisement and plans to spend $4 million promoting it.
The video initially appeared without the “paid for” tag required for television advertisements. Blogger D.J. Brynes, who publishes as The Rooster, told CNN that a voter sent him the recording after seeing the video as part of a poll. Donald Trump Jr. and the influencer Laura Loomer later elevated the video in online posts.
Acton says Arthur enabled and supported the man who raped her when she was 12. Her campaign accused Ramaswamy of reaching a “despicable low”.
The family history behind the advertisement stretches back to Acton’s childhood. Her parents divorced when she was about three. From December 1976 to April 1978, her stepfather, Cledith Arthur, allegedly abused her.
Cledith Arthur was arrested and charged with raping his 12-year-old stepdaughter in July 1978. He pleaded not guilty and was indicted by a grand jury that September, then failed to appear at a court hearing and remained a fugitive until at least 1981.
Acton and her brother, Philip Stearns, were removed from their mother’s custody after the indictment. Acton has said she has not seen Arthur since the two were together in a courtroom in 1978.
Stearns said: “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.” Arthur first spoke out against Acton in 2020 and has accused Acton’s biological father of abusing her while she was pregnant with Acton.
Acton led the Ohio Department of Health from 2019 through 2020. She has said she spent at least one winter in a campground outside Youngstown.
In her response to Spectrum News, Acton said: “I won't normalize somebody who has said that my childhood is just something I'm complaining about, who today just released an ad using my birth mother, who I was removed from at the age of 12 for severe abuse and neglect, and sexual abuse.”
The advertisement has also drawn criticism from Meghan McCain, who called it “dastardly”, and the Democrat Sherrod Brown, who described it as “disgusting.”
Acton holds a 3.7 percentage point lead over Ramaswamy in the latest RealClearPolitics aggregate of polls. More than 676,000 people had already cast ballots in Ohio when the advertisement appeared.
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