The fallout from Vivek Ramaswamy’s brutal spot targeting his Democratic rival in the Ohio governor’s race showed that even in the Trump era, a political attack can be seen as going too far.
Page A221From§Eachthe morning edition — 24 October 2026
Vance tells Republicans to stop whining about ad his own party calls the worst politics imaginable
As it ran on the front
I have to hand it to the gentleman's campaign for the candor, at least at first. A lot of ads in a tight race get laundered through some group most people couldn't name, a filing nobody traces back to anybody. Not this one. On October 21st, Vivek Ramaswamy stood up and said the ad was his — his campaign made it, his campaign is paying to run it. I wrote that down, because you don't see a candidate take the credit out loud that often. Then I read the rest of that same story. The headline on it called the ad his campaign had just claimed, word for word, "the most disgusting, pathetic ad ever created in the history of political ads." Is that a credit you take, or a credit you own up to?
Same day — and I checked the dates twice, because I didn't believe these happened within hours of each other — the vice president told reporters he was disgusted. Not by the ad. By the Republicans complaining about it. He called that whining, on camera, and told them what's coming from him in 2028 would be more of it — his own word for it was "venom." I don't have an opinion about 2028. I have the word, and I have the date he used it: the 21st, same day as the credit-taking.…
…(cont) My notebook gets crowded fast after that. The day before, Sherrod Brown, running for Senate in that same state, had asked his Republican colleague Jon Husted to condemn the ad. On the 21st, Husted said something short of that — he said he wouldn't have run it. That's not the same sentence. One says the ad is wrong. The other says it isn't how he'd have spent the money. I keep that kind of distinction the way I keep the papers in my glovebox — the registration says one thing, the insurance card says something close to it, and a trooper who only glances figures they match. The New York Times, by midweek, was already calling the ad one that had divided the party.
Four million dollars went into putting it on statewide television. That's the number in the filing. I don't have an opinion about that number, either. I have it sitting next to the one that stopped me, from today: a Republican commentator, Scott Jennings, paid to argue this side of things, went on the record calling the ad — and I want to read this back exactly — "the worst politics you could imagine." And still, CBS reported today, the President himself joined the vice president in defending it. I was about ready to close the notebook on that.
Excuse me — before you go. Did you catch the other part from today? Vivek Ramaswamy accused his opponent, Amy Acton, of lying about the ad, about what her own mother says in it. The Guardian ran the court records against that claim today. The records didn't back up the mother's claim. They contradicted it.
I didn't have that part when I started this column. Now that the record has gone the other way, is "worst" still the word, or do we need one the paper hasn't used yet?
“You put out an ad calling a woman a liar using her own estranged mother, your running mate tells his own party to quit crying about it and previews more of the same for 2028, and when the record finally shows up, it's the mother's story that falls apart, not the daughter's. That's not a messaging problem, that's the product. The only people in Ohio who haven't figured out what this costs are apparently running the party.”
“Look, the ad speaks for itself — I mean that's not what I — the campaign is being transparent, they took ownership immediately, that's accountability, that's refreshing honestly. Senator Husted said he wouldn't have run it personally, which, fine, that's one data point, doesn't mean the party — and Scott Jennings, he's an independent voice, he doesn't speak for — did I just cite Scott Jennings against my own argument? That's not — let me start over.”
Earlier in this story
- Vance calls the ad a preview of 2028 'venom' already costing Republicans the Ohio governor's race. By Ruth · the evening edition, 24 October 2026
The receipts
Republican commentator Scott Jennings took a swipe at Ohio gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy (R) for using a controversial campaign ad featuring his opponent’s estranged mother. The ad, which Ramaswamy’s campaign is now spending $4 million to broadcast statewide, features Democratic gubernatorial candidate Amy Acton’s mother, Donna…
Vivek Ramaswamy, the Republican Party's gubernatorial nominee in Ohio, confirmed on Wednesday that his campaign was behind a widely condemned attack ad featuring Democratic opponent Amy Acton's estranged biological mother, sparking fresh outrage less than two weeks before Election Day in the critical battleground state. Ramaswamy went…
An ad released by Ohio's Republican gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy has drawn bipartisan backlash. Olivia Gazis has more.
This live blog is now closed. Sign up for the Breaking News US email With less than two weeks until the midterms, my colleague Jonathan Freedland and Guardian US columnist Moira Donegan are answering your questions in this week’s episode of Politics Weekly America. They break down the final stretch ahead of these hugely consequential…
· Ohio Sen. Jon Husted says ‘I would not have run’ Ramaswamy ad against Amy Acton from the morgue, 21 Oct 2026
· Ramaswamy pours $4 million into ad featuring Amy Acton’s estranged mother from the morgue, 21 Oct 2026
· Brown calls on Husted to condemn ad featuring Acton's mother 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.