LIMA, Ohio — An ad and an ass are consuming Ohio’s political scene.
Just days before Election Day, a pair of topics have come out of left field in the final sprint and are overshadowing the Iran war and the economy, both of which dominated the campaign up until now.
The headliner is Republican Vivek Ramaswamy’s decision to broadcast an ad featuring Donna Arthur, the mother of Amy Acton — his Democratic opponent in the gubernatorial contest — accusing her of being a liar and having mental health issues. Acton’s mother lost custody of Acton and her brother after her husband was indicted on suspicion of sexually abusing Acton, who was 12 years old at the time. She hasn’t spoken to her mother in nearly 50 years.
The other is Sen. Jon Husted’s rear end, which President Donald Trump has admired and spoken about at length at multiple rallies. It’s become a running joke on the campaign trail as the Republican incumbent looks to defeat former Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown.
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“None of that was on my bingo card,” Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose told The Washington Sun in a brief interview about the issues now at the forefront in the final days of campaigning.
Once a preeminent swing state that has turned reliably red over the past decade, Ohio Democrats are salivating at the prospect of winning a spate of races, having not won a statewide contest since 2008 that did not feature Brown.
They likely have their best chance in the governor’s race, where Acton, the former director of the state’s Department of Health during the COVID-19 pandemic, has a good shot at nabbing it for Democrats for the first time since 2006.
Acton had opened up a lead in public polls over the last month, but saw the race explode when the ad featuring her estranged mother appeared in Ohio. The ad also caught attention nationally, and it eventually emerged that Ramaswamy’s campaign was behind it and paid $4 million to put it on the airwaves,
While Trump and Vice President JD Vance have both backed the controversial spot, the overall blowback has been fierce — and bipartisan. Husted quickly distanced himself from the ad, telling reporters on Wednesday that he “wouldn’t have run” it. Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine, a Republican, called for Ramaswamy to take down the ad, and other Republicans indicated that they viewed it as a mistake.
“The question is: Should you run it?” said Rep. Bob Latta (R-Ohio). “If it were me, I probably wouldn’t have.”
At an event on Monday in Dayton that featured Acton, Brown and musician John Legend, speaker after speaker whacked the ad. Legend, a native of nearby Springfield, labeled Ramaswamy “desperate” and “despicable” for the move.
Outside those in the White House, few Republicans are lining up to defend Ramaswamy, especially amid fears that the attack ad was a failed Hail Mary attempt.
A pair of Republican operatives with knowledge of internal polling said that Ramaswamy’s support has cratered since the ad went public, with his numbers shifting from a margin-of-error race versus Acton to facing a mid- to high-single-digit deficit.
Husted’s support, however, remains relatively unchanged, according to these operatives. The surveys show him still in a margin-of-error contest with Brown, though there’s some fear that Ramaswamy could ultimately drag him down..
“Vivek was losing and is going to lose, and that certainly did not help him. I think Husted is getting closer and closing, and Republicans were coming home,” said one Republican operative with Ohio ties, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to candidly discuss the state of play. “[Ramaswamy] is incredibly unlikable.”
A new Suffolk University poll also showed that 72% of respondents had seen or heard the ad, with Ramaswamy’s unfavorable rating ticking up by 2 points since its previous survey in September.
Overall, Acton leads in the survey by 4 percentage points, with limited movement among voters on either side after the ad.
The Ramaswamy campaign did not respond to a request for comment on their internal polling.
Adding to his troubles, The Cook Political Report also shifted the race to “lean Democrat.”
“It’s not going over well,” John Kulewicz, the Democratic nominee to become Ohio’s attorney general, told The Sun. “It reflects what [Ramaswamy] thinks of the people of Ohio, and it’s not very flattering.”
As for Husted, his rear end has inexplicably become one of the biggest talking points in his race to win his first full Senate term and thwart the return of Brown, a former three-term member. Gov. Mike DeWine appointed Husted in January 2025 to finish Vance’s term, when he shifted to his role as vice president.
During a pair of events in Northwest Ohio, speaker after speaker couldn’t help but get in jokes about Husted’s posterior.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune said that his Senate colleague has “got it going on.” (He also told The Sun that he works out with Husted daily in the Senate gym and “that guy can get after it.” He declined to comment further on his “physique.”)
CMS Administrator Mehmet Oz chimed in: “I’ve never gotten the compliments he’s received from the president, even though I’ve known the president for 20-something years. But I’m not jealous.”
Sen. Bernie Moreno chose to use a pun, saying, “The only ass we should be talking about is Sherrod Brown.”
Moreno also noted his fellow Ohio senator’s rear end has become the topic du jour in his preelection travels — even outside of his home state.
“I was meeting with the president on Saturday [in Washington] and literally my Uber driver asked me where I’m from. I said Ohio, and he said, ‘Oh, is that the senator that the president commented on his ass?’ I was like, ‘Oh my god,’” Moreno told The Sun, adding that he also heard about the remark while campaigning for Mike Rogers in Michigan. “Random Uber driver, he had no idea who I was.”
Husted himself got in on the act on the eve of Trump’s planned event Wednesday evening in Chillicothe.
“Don’t worry, I was in the weight room this morning working out,” Husted said to laughs from the crowd. “I don’t let him down.”
Trump has made his riff about Husted’s rear end part of his regular stump speech since first commenting on it at a rally in Youngstown earlier this month. On Tuesday in Texas, he compared it favorably to the appearance of Ken Paxton, the state attorney general and GOP Senate nominee whose looks he has derided.
Back in Ohio for another rally Wednesday night, the president again recounted how he had noticed Husted’s backside and said he changed how people look at the Ohio senator.“He took on a whole new persona. He went from — sort of like Clark Kent, if you think about it – and he became Superman.”
While Trump claimed that Husted has seen a massive polling spike as a result of the discourse surrounding his appearance, the race remains central to both party’s hopes of winning the Senate majority. Thune told Husted’s supporters in Clyde, Ohio, that the state is “ground zero” for determining control of the chamber. Republicans widely believe the incumbent senator is in a dogfight that will go down to the wire.
The Senate race is also among the most expensive contests on the map this year. According to AdImpact, more than $380 million is set to be spent on the Husted-Brown battle through Tuesday.
Ohio Republicans are quick to point to Moreno’s victory two years ago when Brown led in almost every poll until the final week, when the state’s rightward bent returned to form and Republican voters turned out to back the now-senator. Moreno won by more than 3 percentage points.
When asked if Republicans are finally coming home, Moreno said: “I think so.”
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