Ohio gubernatorial nominee Vivek Ramaswamy’s extremely personal attack ad featuring his opponent’s estranged mother is mudslinging gone too far, some Republicans warned.

Ramaswamy has refused to apologize for funding the ad about his opponent, Amy Acton, who holds a moderate lead over him in the polls. In the face of bipartisan backlash, he’s promised to spend an additional $4 million to promote it.

Ohio Republican Sen. Jon Husted was blunt with reporters on Wednesday: “I would not have run that ad.”

The commercial began airing on Monday and features Acton’s mother, Donna Arthur, calling her daughter “a liar” and someone who “has a serious problem.”

Acton, the former director of Ohio’s Health Department, has been open with voters about her difficult childhood in which she was temporarily homeless and raped by her stepfather.

Despite Acton’s allegations of sexual abuse as a child, Arthur remained married to her husband and eventually fled the state with him to evade the law — leaving Acton and her brother to live with their biological father, she has previously shared.

“Damn, that’s pretty damn low,” Casey Putsch, who faced Ramaswamy in Ohio’s gubernatorial primary, said of Arthur’s inclusion in the ad, accusing the campaign of manipulating the woman to participate. He added that he’s voting for Acton in the upcoming election.

Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine (R) urged Ramaswamy to take down the ad.

“The ad, on its face, is deeply, deeply troubling,” DeWine told reporters in Ohio on Thursday. “It’s wrong to run this ad.”

Conservative pundit Scott Jennings characterized Ramaswamy’s decision to run the ad as “extremely risky.”

“(To) throw out a piece like this at the end of a race is not a confidence-inspiring item,” he said this week on CNN.

Meghan McCain said the ad “never should have been created.”

“Shame on whatever consultant firm created this,” she wrote on social media.

Nikki Haley, a Republican and former governor of South Carolina, who ran against Ramaswamy in the 2024 presidential primary, slammed the ad choice as well.

“He’s a bad guy,” she wrote in an X post. “It’s a shame he continues to get away with it.”

Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose said Wednesday that his office was investigating a number of complaints made about the ad.

“I probably wouldn’t run an ad like that, but every candidate gets to make their own decision,” he told ABC 6 News.

Vice President JD Vance, meanwhile, grumbled about the criticism from members of his own party.

“I’m a little bit disgusted when I see Republicans across the country who are whining more about that advertisement than they are about what the congressional Democrats and other Democrats want to do to the United States of America,” he told reporters during a visit to Ohio on Wednesday.

While the ad tries to paint Acton’s story as inaccurate, her campaign this week produced evidence of her stepfather’s indictment on rape charges and released an emotional ad of its own with Acton’s brother stating Ramaswamy is “not fit to lead.”

“To think that that’s somehow a talking point, shame on Vivek,” said Phil Stearns, Acton’s brother. “The contempt he has for Amy is the contempt he has for Ohio.”

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