The ad’s effectiveness requires knowing nothing about Donna Arthur. She has not seen her daughter since 1978, when Acton and her brother were removed from Arthur’s custody after her husband—Acton’s stepfather—was indicted for raping Acton. Arthur left Ohio and stayed with the stepfather, who has since passed away. Acton’s allegations are credible, horrifying, and a key part of her appeal as a candidate who has known struggle. The ad, in context, is revolting and disqualifying. It not only weaponizes an opponent’s trauma but adds a partisan sheen to her allegations of abuse: Ramaswamy and his backers are implicitly suggesting that Acton’s story isn’t believable because she is a Democrat. It’s vile stuff—yet reveals a deep weakness in the GOP as it slouches toward the post-Trump era.
These are familiar attacks because they’ve been deployed again and again by Trump, the most successful Republican this century. But they’re not quite working as planned. Talarico is leading in a state Trump won by nearly 14 points. El-Sayed is on the verge of becoming the first Muslim senator in U.S. history. Acton is leading—and if she wins, that despicable ad will have cemented her victory. Instead of pointing toward a new Trumpian Republican politics, these desperate and nasty attacks suggest something else: Trump is actually quite hard to imitate.
Personal attacks have always been part of politics, of course. Politics is a tough business, as they say. Actually, that’s exactly what JD Vance said when asked about the Ramaswamy ad on Wednesday.
WOW -- Vance *defends* Ramaswamy's reprehensible ad ? Q: Ramaswamy's campaign put out a controversial ad featuring his opponent's mother. Some Republicans are backing away from that. Do you think that ad was appropriate? JD VANCE: Well, I'll be honest with you. Whether the ad was appropriate or not is not really my concern. My concern is who is gonna govern. I have to admit I'm a little bit disgusted when I see Republicans who are whining more about that ad than they are about what the Democrats want to do.
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) October 21, 2026It’s a revealing answer. The ad against Acton was meant to stoke outrage—just not like this. Ramaswamy and his allies wanted a Democratic backlash, which they hoped would engender the magic of negative partisanship: a backlash on the right to the Democratic backlash. That doesn’t quite work when the outrage is coming from everywhere, including your own house. It’s hard not to see many of the attacks against Democrats, particularly the ones about gender and sexuality, as seeking to do something similar. Republicans want these attacks to stoke outrage only from Democrats, but they’re managing to offend everyone.
That’s been a useful escape hatch for Trump. It’s undoubtedly true that many of his supporters flock to him because of his wanton cruelty, like his pledges to execute political opponents and cripple migrants. But Trump’s use of irony (and sometimes humor, loosely defined) creates a buffer between him and his audience, keeping us all guessing: Is he really serious about shooting protesters, for instance, or is that just part of the larger political game he’s playing? And the sense that he’s playing a game—one that his supporters are caught up in—is a big part of his appeal to a lot of people.
It goes without saying that Vance and Ramaswamy could never pull this off, but they would never try anyway. They’ve studied Trump and apparently have concluded that his appeal lies in his shocking meanness; then they imitate it, with straight faces, and wonder why no one finds them entertaining. Trump is really the only one who could get away with an ad like the one Ramaswamy is spending $4 million to show across Ohio right now—but I’m not sure even Trump would have approved it.
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