The ruling party candidate who launched a harsh and aggressive campaign advertisement featuring the mother of his opposition rival ahead of the US midterm gubernatorial election in Ohio ultimately suffered a defeat.
As vote-counting for the Ohio gubernatorial election took place on November 3 (local time), networks like NBC News projected that Democratic opposition candidate Amy Acton defeated Republican candidate Vivek Ramaswamy.
Previously, Ramaswamy heavily broadcasted a one-minute commercial featuring Acton's mother in the final stretch of the election campaign.
In the advertisement, the mother targeted her daughter Acton, saying, "As a mother, it is not easy to say this, but my daughter is a liar."
However, fierce backlash erupted after it was revealed that Acton had suffered abuse, including sexual assault, from her stepfather during her childhood, and was separated from her mother and stepfather at the age of 12 as a result.
Furthermore, facts came to light showing that when the stepfather was indicted, the mother went on the run with him and lived with him until his death, turning her back on her daughter.
The campaign had dragged the mother—who sided with the abuser despite the fact that Acton, a victim of childhood abuse and neglect, likely lived with lasting trauma—into the political arena.
When the advertisement sparked controversy, the Republican Party quickly distanced itself out of concern that the fallout would spread to other races, but President Trump further fueled the controversy by defending Ramaswamy's broadcast of the ad.
In the end, this advertisement appears to have served as a major political backlash against the Republican Party in the midterms.
This is because Ohio has been a strong Republican stronghold where President Trump won consecutively starting from the 2016 presidential election, and served as the base where Vice President Vance held a Senate seat before winning the 2024 presidential election, yet the ruling party candidate still ended up losing.
NBC News also projected that in addition to the gubernatorial race, Democratic candidate Sherrod Brown defeated incumbent Senator Jon Husted in the U.S. Senate race in Ohio.
Reported by Jung Da-eun | Video by Kim Kihyun | Graphics by Lee Jeong-ju | Produced by SBS Digital News
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