DeWine and Vance: A case study of Ohio political reaction to the now-infamous Ramaswamy Acton ad

Ohio’s 2026 campaign for governor made history this week with what’s quickly becoming one of the most notorious political advertisements of all time.

Ohio voters can find it airing on all of our screens, with the campaign of Republican candidate for governor Vivek Ramaswamy putting $4 million behind its promotion.

It features the estranged mother of his Democratic opponent Dr. Amy Acton, who Acton says she has not seen since she was 12 years old, leaving a Mahoning County courthouse where her stepfather was charged in 1978 with raping her.

Acton’s mother, Donna Arthur, stayed married to the indicted stepfather, Cledith Arthur, until his death in 2004, after they had fled to Pennsylvania to escape the charges. Arthur herself has a record of being convicted for theft by deception in Pennsylvania in 1996, and animal abuse in 2021.

Democrat Amy Acton’s estranged mother calls her liar in ad; court documents say otherwise

Acton and her brother went to live with their dad.

Despite Arthur not seeing Acton in nearly 50 years, Ramaswamy’s ad features her talking directly to camera and calling Acton a liar.

The ad drew swift bipartisan backlash after it was leaked from a test poll. Acton said she thinks making the ad “was a horrible and hideous thing to do, a sad thing, and I feel like it was an exploitive thing to do. My mother is not well.”

Acton’s brother, who has confirmed the childhood abuse the siblings suffered, took his aim at Ramaswamy:

“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. This desperate, disgusting attack reveals exactly who Vivek Ramaswamy is at his core – a pathetic excuse for a man who is willing to hurt anyone as long as it gets him what he wants.”

After dodging direct responsibility for the ad during most of the day Tuesday, that evening Ramaswamy confirmed the ad came from his campaign and announced he would double-down with the $4 million ad buy.

JD Vance, Donald Trump, and lying in politics

Vice President JD Vance of Ohio backs Vivek Ramaswamy amid attack ad blowback

On Wednesday, Vice President JD Vance of Ohio came to his home town of Cincinnati and tripled down on the ad, directing his ire at fellow Republicans, whom he said “disgusted” him for “whining” about it.

“Disgusting” seems to be one of Vance’s favorite words and he often relates how disgusted he is by one thing or another in speeches, podcast interviews, and social media.

“I have to admit that I’m a little bit disgusted when I see Republicans across the country who are whining more about that advertisement than they are about what the congressional Democrats and other Democrats want to do to the United States of America,” Vance told his campaign rally crowd Wednesday.

Some Ohioans might be surprised to see this closing argument from Ramaswamy, Vance, and today President Donald Trump, that lying is disqualifying for politicians, given Ramaswamy’s, Vance’s, and Trump’s track records on that matter.

Trump specifically boasts a magnificent historical canon of lying about the most mundane to the most monstrous things.

Trump famously told more than 30,000 lies just in first term alone. It’s been so many lies, in fact, it’s become a subject of academic study.

CNN fact-checker Daniel Dale in September wrote a column on what it’s been like fact-checking 10 years of Trump’s lies.

“His relentless dishonesty has become a central feature of US and world politics. Voters and members of Congress, allies and adversaries, CEOs and investors alike have had to try to figure out how to read a man whose words are so frequently not true,” Dale wrote.

“It’s abundantly clear that there is no public official in Washington who lies like Trump — not as constantly, not as obviously, not about as many topics. I’ve heard people dismiss Trump’s mendacity with a shrugging ‘they all lie,’ but we are witnessing a rare, very possibly once-in-a-lifetime political liar.”

It is 100% correct that voters should demand honesty from our politicians, but their glaringly obvious hypocrisy on the issue turns the political play of hyperventilating over lying into just another form of dishonesty and manipulation.

The slime machine in Ohio politics has reached a despicable new low in the 2026 election

Lying has consequences. Policy based on lies has even more dire consequences. We know this in Ohio.

In the 2024 Election, both JD Vance and Trump infamously told the most horrid, blatant, racist lies about the city of Springfield, Ohio. Vance claimed at the time he would create stories for media attention on Americans’ suffering.

Those lies formed the basis of Trump revoking legal status for protected Haitian refugees in Springfield this year as president.

Springfield now leads the state in year-over-year job losses.

Federal job reports show the city’s labor force lost 1,100 manufacturing, leisure and hospitality jobs, contracting 2.2% in 2025 alone.

Trump jumped in on defending Ramaswamy over the anti-Acton ad on Thursday with a lengthy post on his social media site.

Trump took credit for suggesting that Ramaswamy keep the ad up; he attacked the press; ignoring the context of childhood rape, Trump claimed Arthur’s words should be disqualifying for Acton; he claimed “artificial” news was trying to demean and embarrass Ramaswamy; he called on the mothers of his opponents to call their children liars; he said Arthur calling Acton a liar “took a lot of courage;” he claimed that the press is trying to convince the public that the ad is bad “because it’s so good;” he asked who wouldn’t use such an ad, and confirmed he would; he alleged that Acton uncontrollably lies, cheats and steals; and he called Ramaswamy brilliant and outstanding.

Through the last 11 years, Trump has warped American politics by practicing an ethos of never adhering to basic norms of public decency and never backing down from his indecency.

‘Never back down’ and other inanities

On Wednesday, Axios reported how this is apparently one of Vance’s favorite things about Trump.

“There is nothing JD has more personal disdain for than weak Republicans who reflexively kowtow every time the Dem-media demands a scalp,” a source close to Vance told Axios. “It drives him crazy to see the cucked reaction from some establishment operatives and politicians in the GOP, who he views as nothing more than useful idiots for the left.”

In recent years, the terminally online right has become somewhat obsessed with the idea of cuckolding, and use the metaphor relentlessly to attempt to mock pretty much anyone or anything they want to try to portray as weak.

They like to refer to themselves as alphas and to use puerile slogans like “live by the sword, die by the sword” to describe their desk jobs.

The standard operating procedure for these emotionally stunted man-children is the acronym DARVO: Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim and Offender.

1. Deny all wrongdoing and even deny that reality is reality or that facts are facts;
2. Attack anyone and everyone who pushes back in any way (big points for calling them a cuck or referencing cuckolding);
3. Reverse Victim and Offender. They are the victim, the true victim, the only victim; never anyone they victimize.

It’s a very adolescent mindset, and shows a severe lack of emotional and mental maturity.

It smacks of 13-year-old-kid-trying-to-show-his-friends-how-tough-he-is.

It’s also an anti-social and dehumanizing mindset. It sets out to dehumanize others but really just dehumanizes whomever adopts this mindset.

It’s also just very pathetic for any grown adult male, and far more revealing of themselves than I suspect they realize.

I suspect they imagine themselves as coming off as tough when really they just come off as childish.

Strength doesn’t come from strutting and peacocking, puffing your chest out and desperately trying to prove to everyone how big and strong and mean and tough you are; strength comes from inner control, discipline, restraint, self-esteem, and having the confidence and power of mind to be wise and gentle and to serve others, instead of serving your own small, selfish, insecure ego.

Mike DeWine

‘Just wrong.’ Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine tells Ramaswamy to immediately take down controversial ad.

Other Ohio Republicans did show maturity and strength of mind.

Most prominent among them was Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine, who gathered reporters in the Statehouse rotunda Thursday.

“It’s deeply, deeply, deeply troubling,” DeWine said of the ad. “It needs to come down; it’s just wrong to continue to run it.”

This is the second time that DeWine has had to refute or condemn an ad put out by his would-be Republican successor.

While DeWine did show the strength and maturity of mind to condemn Ramaswamy’s attack ad, he did not rescind his endorsement of Ramaswamy.

DeWine claimed that what he thinks or who he endorses “is pretty irrelevant,” and couched his refusal to rescind his endorsement of Ramaswamy in specific with his support for the entire Republican ticket in general.

“Look, I believe, as I just said, that people I’ve worked with on that ticket are very, very good people,” he responded. “Look, I’m a Republican, and so I did my endorsement a few months ago. What I wanted to talk today about is this ad.”

It’s hard not to get the impression that DeWine feels pretty squeamish and uncomfortable here.

He’s a smart guy. Playing modest about how much his endorsement doesn’t matter as a sitting governor is a political evasion, and somewhere inside he knows that.

This isn’t surprising from DeWine because at the end of the day DeWine is and always has been Republican-no-matter-what.

Despite whatever’s happening in his stomach, DeWine has repeatedly co-signed the Trump Era of American politics, and his name is on the bill too.

I find that fascinating, because — acceptance, normalization, and rationalization of public corruption notwithstanding — I believe Mike DeWine is fundamentally a decent person in his heart.

I am captivated by what politics does to many decent people: how they will squirm with discomfort but still accept worse and worse and worse out of pure partisan loyalty.

Nevertheless, Trump attacked DeWine nearly as viciously as Acton: “He probably wants a Dumocrat to win, and certainly doesn’t want someone who will do a much better job than he’s capable of doing.”

With friends like these, eh? What a time to be alive.