Democrat in Ohio governor's race pushes back against unattributed ad featuring her estranged mother

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — Dr. Amy Acton , the Democratic candidate for Ohio governor, pushed back forcefully Tuesday against an unattributed ad circulating online in which her long-estranged mother calls her “a liar” and insinuates she has mental health issues.

The ad began circulating overnight, just two weeks before Election Day. Acton, Ohio's former public health director , is in a tight race with Republican billionaire Vivek Ramaswamy , a 2024 presidential candidate who has benefited from spending on his behalf that has exceeded $120 million.

The online ad, which first surfaced in a post by an Ohio political blogger, spread quickly across social media platforms. It does not include the “paid for” tag that is legally required to air on TV so viewers can know its source.

It was not immediately clear who produced it or paid for it, or how it was accessed for posting. It also was not clear if Acton's mother was paid for the one-minute spot. Her last known telephone number has been disconnected.

Acton suggested Ramaswamy was behind the ad.

“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," she told Spectrum News, a cable news outlet in Ohio.

She said Ramaswamy was accused of similar personal attacks during his run for the GOP presidential nomination: “This is a lifelong pattern with my opponent.”

Ramaswamy’s campaign issued a statement that did not address whether he was responsible for the ad or disavow it. In the statement, campaign spokeswoman Connie Luck said Acton “has some serious problems with the truth that the public needs to be aware of.”

In a statement released by Acton's campaign, her brother, Philip Stearns, said the two were removed from their mother Donna Arthur's custody as children after their stepfather, Arthur's husband, was indicted for raping Acton as a child. Acton has not seen Arthur, whose last known address was in Pennsylvania, since they were in a courtroom together in 1978.

According to police and court documents obtained by The Associated Press, Cledith Arthur was arrested and charged with the rape of his stepdaughter, then 12, in July 1978, after Acton's biological father reported his alleged conduct to authorities. The abuse allegedly happened from December 1976 to April 1978.

Cledith Arthur pleaded not guilty. He was indicted by a grand jury that September, but failed to show at a court hearing and remained a fugitive until at least 1981. He has since died.

Stearns accused Ramaswamy of being behind the ad, saying the Republican had stooped "to such a despicable low as to attempt to turn the sexual abuse Amy endured at 12 years old from our birth mother’s husband into a political talking point.”

Acton's mother does not mention Ramaswamy's name in the ad, but she suggests that Acton has misrepresented her opponent and the time her family was homeless and living in a tent when she was a child __ an experience Stearns corroborates.

Associated Press writer Ali Swenson in New York contributed to this report.