The forces behind the test balloon ad featuring former state Health Department Director Amy Acton’s (D) estranged mother knew they were playing with fire in the closing days of the Ohio gubernatorial race.
The ad, its origins unknown Monday evening when the video first circulated on social media surfaced, features Donna Arthur calling her gubernatorial candidate daughter a liar.
Acton had previously said she was estranged from her mother and spoke about experiencing sexual abuse as a child.
The viral clip prompted immediate backlash. 2024 presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy’s (R) campaign initially didn’t take credit for the ad on Tuesday. Now, it's putting $4 million behind it to air on streaming services.
“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,” Philip Stearns, Acton’s brother, said in a statement issued Tuesday morning.
But those behind a poll message testing the ad, obtained by Hotline and distributed by market research firm Dynata, seemed to be testing just that. Before showing the ad, the poll asked whether respondents thought it was true that Acton was sexually abused as a child and lived in a tent.
The poll then made respondents watch the minute-long video twice where Acton’s estranged mother says Acton “lies about her past, she says she grew up living in a tent. None of that is true.” However, Arthur doesn’t reference the sexual abuse. After, the survey asked respondents to rank whether the ad was persuasive, impacted their vote, or too sensational.
Acton’s stepfather was charged with having sexual contact with her, according to court documents obtained by the National Review. After her stepfather was indicted by a grand jury, he left town. Arthur “stayed married to Amy’s rapist until he died,” according to Stearns.
Dynata is the market-research firm who distributed the poll, though the pollster behind it is unclear.
The poll shows that Ramaswamy’s campaign was trying to calculate whether Acton’s own mother speaking against her could drown out any noise of her defense of a sexual abuser. By airing that ad, it seems they’ve made their bet. But given the rampant backlash, Ramaswamy is likely the one whom this attack ad negatively impacts.
— Abby Turner
