Multiple people close to Ohio Republican gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy’s campaign reportedly warned him not to do an attack ad featuring his opponent’s estranged mother, only to be ignored.
Zeteo News is reporting that Ramaswamy advisers tried to talk him out of making an ad featuring Democrat Amy Acton’s mother, a woman who abandoned her children to live with her fugitive husband who’d been charged with raping Acton as a child.
An unnamed Donald Trump adviser told Zeteo that the ad made Ramaswamy look as if he was “siding with the rapist protector mom,” and said the ad was “never a good idea.”
Sources familiar with the making of the ad said Acton’s 82-year-old mother was “in bad shape.” One high-ranking Ohio Republican reportedly said they wouldn’t have chosen to use her for an attack ad.
The New York Times noted that the woman had been living in her car in a church parking lot near Boalsburg, Pennsylvania.
Ramaswamy staffers and employees for the Strategy Group, the firm behind the ad, traveled to Ohio to film Acton’s mother. Some staffers reportedly wanted to vet her story ― including the part where she called her daughter a “liar” — but that didn’t stop the candidate from going forward.
Zeteo reported that some Ramaswamy employees considered resigning over the ad but haven’t done so for fear of hurting GOP chances on Election Day.
Robert McColley, Ohio GOP’s lieutenant governor candidate, also had private concerns about the ad, according to Zeteo. McColley did not immediately respond to HuffPost’s request for comment.
Democrats and Republicans alike have condemned Ramaswamy’s advertisement as a smear that crossed the line, though President Donald Trump has supported it.
Ramaswamy’s staff and advisers’ reported prediction that the Acton ad would backfire seems to have come true. The Democrat currently strengthened her lead over Ramaswamy in the polls, 48.5% to 44.3%, according to RealClearPolitics.
Ramaswamy has since defended the ad, saying that the goal of politics is “to point out where you think your opponents are flawed.”