Embattled Vivek Ramaswamy’s bid to keep Ohio’s governorship in Republican hands suffered another body blow over the weekend due to his ugly attack on his opponent, Amy Acton.
According to a report from the Daily Beast, Ohio’s biggest newspaper has "torn up its own rules" and endorsed Ramaswamy’s Democratic rival, saying his vile attack ad is completely disqualifying.
In a "brutal blow" for the billionaire president and his billionaire choice for Ohio’s next governor, The Plain Dealer’s editorial board declared Sunday that it could not remain silent after Ramaswamy’s campaign used Acton’s estranged mother to attack her credibility, the Beast reported.
“A candidate who uses childhood sexual abuse as a weapon against the person who endured it has crossed a line that Ohioans should defend, whatever their party,” the board wrote of the ad Ramaswamy released last week.
“We are better than this. We have a responsibility to show it. Today, we endorse Democrat Amy Acton for governor.”
The scathing editorial, which comes just nine days before Election Day, is particularly potent because the newspaper "announced only nine months ago" that it would no longer endorse candidates for governor, the U.S. Senate or the presidency, after readers said it should concentrate on down-ballot contests.
But the board argued it "could not stay silent' in such a consequential election, according to the Beast.
“There are moments when a community must decide what it stands for, when its institutions have a duty to speak and when silence itself becomes a statement,” it wrote. “Ohio has reached such a moment.”
The damaging editorial caps a bruising week on the campaign trail, where Ramaswamy’s decision to turn Acton’s family history into an attack ad has threatened to overshadow his message on the issues facing Ohio voters.
The ad featured Acton’s estranged mother, Donna Arthur, calling her daughter a liar. It left out the history of alleged abuse that led to Acton being removed from her mother’s custody at age 12, after her stepfather was charged with raping her.