Page F124From§Eachthe evening edition — 23 October 2026
As it ran on the front
On Monday a sixty-second video surfaces online: Donna Arthur calling her daughter, Amy Acton, a liar, urging Ohioans not to vote for her. Acton says Arthur is the mother who stayed with the stepfather charged with raping her, a charge he never answered because he fled the state; he died in 2004 without a trial. Acton says she was sexually abused by him at 12, and that she has not spoken to Arthur since 1978, the year she and her brother were removed from the home for abuse and neglect. Her brother backs her account. Acton calls it part of a lifelong pattern of personal attacks from her opponent, Vivek Ramaswamy, and says his campaign is behind it. A critic quoted in a Common Dreams dispatch calls Ramaswamy a "pathetic excuse for a man."
By Wednesday the ad has company inside Ramaswamy's own party. Ohio's governor, DeWine, calls it wrong and asks the campaign to take it down. Vice President Vance tells Republicans to "stop whining" about it instead, and go win the race. Ashley Hinson, running her own Senate campaign in Iowa, does not take the instruction; she condemns the ad and, per ABC, lands at odds with the President.…
…(cont) Thursday the President settles which column the ad belongs in. "Who wouldn't use such an Ad?" he writes. "I would, it's called, hitting pay dirt."
Here is the reconciliation, hon. The ad was built as a debit against Acton: an unanswered rape charge, a mother estranged since 1978, run to cost her the race. Instead every entry lands on the other side of the ledger. DeWine's "wrong," Hinson's dissent, Vance's order to stop whining, the President's own "pay dirt" — four Republican voices, four lines added to the same receipt. The one number everyone agrees on is that Acton's donations keep climbing while the party argues over the ad's manners. An attack ad is supposed to withdraw from a candidate's account. This one keeps making deposits.
“They build an ad to bury a woman's childhood and the only thing that goes up is her bank account — that's not strategy, that's a party that forgot how its own trick works. Vance tells them to stop whining, Trump calls it pay dirt, and the one Republican who says no is off running her own race in a different state. Eleven days to the vote, and the one account nobody in that party wants to look at is the one that just keeps growing.”
“Look, the Vice President said stop whining, and frankly that's just good coaching, not an endorsement of the content — which I haven't seen, to be clear, I have seen it. The President calling it "pay dirt" is obviously a mining metaphor about opposition research, nothing more — did I say pay dirt? That does sound bad out loud. And Hinson doing her own thing in Iowa, that's just federalism, that's not the party splitting, why would you even say that.”
Earlier in this story
The receipts
Democrats are running an average of 11.5 points ahead of their 2024 baseline across 2026 special elections MultiState Elections, 2026 special-election tracking
United-States : Backlash over controversial Ohio midterms campaign adThe backlash over an Ohio campaign advertisement attacking Amy Acton, the Democratic nominee for governor, spread beyond the state's borders Thursday, causing fresh headaches for Republicans with less than two weeks until the midterm elections.
US Vice President JD Vance on Wednesday defended an explosive attack ad by Republican Vivek Ramaswamy’s campaign against his Democratic rival in the Ohio governor’s race, telling fellow Republicans to "stop whining" about it and go win the race. The ad features Democrat Amy Acton’s estranged mother, Donna Arthur, disputing Acton’s…
"Who wouldn't use such an Ad?" President Trump wrote. "I would, it's called, 'hitting pay dirt.'"
Iowa GOP Senate candidate Ashley Hinson strongly condemned Ohio GOP governor candidate Vivek Ramaswamy for his ad featuring opponent Amy Acton's estranged mother.
· 'Pathetic Excuse for a Man': Ramaswamy Slammed Over Ad Featuring Acton’s Estranged Mother in Ohio from the morgue, 20 Oct 2026
· Ohio governor’s race takes ugly turn with viral video featuring Acton’s mother from the morgue, 20 Oct 2026
· Acton responds to ad, says personal attacks 'a lifelong pattern' for Ramaswamy from the morgue, 20 Oct 2026
This page is a back-issue: the story as it ran, receipts as they were. The current edition is at the front. The byline is a pen name for a column drafted by a machine and checked by the editor: how this is made.