In the late stages of the 2026 Ohio governor's race, it emerged that Republican candidate Vivek Ramaswamy had commissioned an ad in which Donna Arthur, the mother of his Democratic counterpart, Amy Acton, denounced her daughter as a mentally ill person who had lied about her background growing up in Youngstown. The ad was produced by The Strategy Group, a Republican media firm based in the Columbus suburb of Delaware.

This ad had a particularly vicious dimension. In 1978, Acton's stepfather, Cledith "Bud" Arthur, was arrested for sexually assaulting then 12-year-old Amy Stearns over two years. He absconded to Pennsylvania shortly after being indicted primarily on Amy's testimony, never to return. Donna Arthur followed him rather than side with her daughter, and they stayed together until his death in 2004. Action and her siblings were removed from Donna Arthur's custody. Acton hasn't seen or spoken to her mother since Arthur turned her cheek away from her when she tried to kiss her in court 48 years prior. 

The Ramaswamy campaign claims the ad was focused on Acton's lies during her adult life. But by using her mother as the star of the ad, Ramaswamy and Strategy Group weren't calling Amy Acton a liar. They were calling 12-year-old Amy Stearns a liar. They did not produce any extraordinary evidence to support the extraordinary claim that a 12-year-old girl would lie about such a thing. On the contrary, Ramaswamy's running mate, State Senate President Rob McColley, said that the campaign believed Acton was telling the truth about what happened to her. In other words, Ramaswamy was condoning victim shaming. 

Making this even worse, Strategy Group CEO Ben Yoho has Bible verses on his biography page on his company's Website as well as on his Twitter/X profile. It is beyond comprehension how someone who openly promotes his Christian faith on his channels would find this ad remotely acceptable.

This ad was not only abhorrent and depraved, but potentially veered into criminal conduct. According to The Daily Beast, 84-year-old Arthur appeared visibly unwell during filming, with one source close to the campaign saying she was "far gone" and "in bad shape." It is beyond belief that no one with the Ramaswamy campaign or The Strategy Group would find it acceptable to have a visibly unwell elderly woman be part of an attack ad. Based on what has been reported, this at the very least meets the real-world definition of elder abuse. Ramaswamy was reportedly bound and determined to run with the ad without vetting Arthur's claims--and more importantly, apparently without regard for Arthur's mental state. If this is accurate, Yoho and Strategy Group should have had the decency to tell Ramaswamy that they could not go forward with the ad--and didn't do so.

What is beyond dispute, however, is that this ad breached every standard of decency that is known.  We should not want to live in a world where the prospect of having childhood trauma turned against you is what you sign up for when you get into politics. With Ramaswamy unwilling to take responsibility, the onus is on Strategy Group to renounce this ad and apologize to Governor-elect Acton and her family.