Ramaswamy's campaign confirmed to Axios that it made the ad and is spending $4 million to air it statewide. The estrangement is the story behind the ad. Acton, the Democratic nominee for Ohio governor, says her stepfather sexually abused her and her mother sided with him. He was charged with raping her in 1978, and she has not seen her mother since that courtroom.
Who said what
- Ramaswamy spokesperson Connie Luck called Acton a "serial fabulist."
- Acton's brother Philip Stearns: "our birth mother stayed married to Amy's rapist until he died."
- Fellow Republicans urged Ramaswamy to distance himself from the ad.