There’s a campaign moment I can’t stop thinking about.
asserted
I → ’ → ?
It happened shortly after the campaign of Vivek Ramaswamy, the Republican nominee for governor of Ohio, released a shocking attack ad featuring the estranged mother of his Democratic opponent, Amy Acton.
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campaign → happen → opponent
In the ad, as many readers will know by now, Acton’s mother accuses her daughter of lying and tells Ohioans not to vote for her.
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mother → know → her
Acton, 60, says she has not spoken to her mother since she was 12, when she and her brother were removed from their mother’s custody after their stepfather was arrested and charged with raping her.
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stepfather → say → her
Acton says she last saw her mother at the courthouse, where her mother came to support her husband as her daughter testified against him.
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daughter → say → him
The moment that captured my attention took place at a campaign event on a farm in Wharton, Ohio, and it was much less newsy.
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it → capture → Wharton
Acton was speaking to a group of supporters and a woman asked: “Can I give you a hug?”
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I → speak → hug
“Of course you can,” the candidate replied, walking over and allowing herself to be embraced.
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herself → reply → ?
After watching the ad, the woman told Acton: “All I wanted to do was cry and hug you and tell you it’ll be OK.”
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it → watch → you
After weeks of wondering ‘how much lower can they go’, particularly on the right, Ramaswamy pulled out a shovel and dug deeper.
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Ramaswamy → wonder → shovel
In Michigan, Abdul El-Sayed, the Democratic nominee for Senate, has faced a barrage of ads attacking his religion (he is Muslim) and claiming, baselessly, that he has ties to Islamic terrorist organizations.
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he → face → organizations
As Donald Trump barnstorms the country trying to salvage Republicans’ majorities in Congress, he has hurled Islamophobic invectives at El-Sayed.
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he → barnstorm → Sayed
In Texas, the Republican Senate nominee Ken Paxton and his allies have pumped out controversial ads – many of them AI-generated – that attack his opponent James Talarico as effeminate and misstate his position on transgender rights.
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that → pump → rights
JD Vance doubled down on that line of attack, baselessly musing that Talarico was gay.
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Talarico → double → attack
Perhaps unsurprisingly, both Trump and Vance have defended Ramaswamy’s ad.
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Trump → defend → ad
“Stop whining,” the vice-president told Republicans who had called for the ad to come down.
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ad → whine → Republicans
Ramaswamy, a billionaire entrepreneur who has embraced the president’s never-back-down, politics-as-blood-sport ethos, was defiant.
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who → embrace → ethos
Many Republicans, including the state’s outgoing governor, Mike DeWine, have condemned the ad alongside Acton.
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Republicans → include → Acton
“It’s wrong to run this ad,” said DeWine, who has endorsed Ramaswamy.
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who → ’ → Ramaswamy
On Thursday, amid mounting pressure and polling that found the ad backfiring, Ramaswamy said that his campaign had discontinued it.
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campaign → mount → it
In 1964, Lyndon Johnson’s presidential campaign pulled the so-called “Daisy” ad from TV amid fierce public criticism over its suggestion that the Republican nominee, Barry Goldwater, would wage nuclear war if elected.
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nominee → pull → war
The “Daisy” ad seems almost quaint now, from the vantage point of 2026, a year in which the US president threatened to “annihilate” Iran in a speech before the United Nations general assembly.
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president → seem → assembly
Trump has crossed so many red lines since he emerged as a presidential candidate in 2015 – gleefully breaking political, legal and constitutional norms – that it can be hard to tell what the rules of engagement are anymore.
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rules → cross → engagement
He has mocked world leaders, flattered dictators, disparaged political opponents as the “enemy within”, encouraged violence against protesters, called a female journalist “piggy,” declared that undocumented immigrants were “poisoning the blood” of the country, and on and on.
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immigrants → mock → country
So it took me by surprise that the Ramaswamy ad was met with such strong bipartisan condemnation – the rare red line in deeply cynical times.
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ad → take → times
The ruthless ad aired in Ohio, a one-time presidential battleground that has shifted toward Republicans in recent election cycles but is home this year to several competitive races.
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that → air → races
Will the ad have a blast radius that hurts other Republicans in the state, like Jon Husted, the incumbent Ohio senator whose posterior Trump can’t stop raving about?
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Trump → have → posterior
Acton must have known when she decided to run that the campaign would be ugly.
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campaign → know → ?
She first rose to prominence in early 2020 as the director of the Ohio department of health.
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She → rise → health
She became an early face of the pandemic response and, in the beginning, was roundly praised for her clearly communicated daily briefings, inspiring bobblehead dolls and little girls’ Halloween costumes.
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She → become → dolls
But as backlash brewed against the state’s lockdown measures, she also became a high-profile target of armed protests outside her home, antisemitic slurs (Acton is Jewish) and misinformation campaigns.
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Acton → brew → home
At a campaign event earlier this fall, an armed man was arrested after lunging at Acton as she spoke at a county fair.
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she → arrest → fair
She was not injured, and Acton, a physician, stayed on site to treat one of the onlookers injured in the episode.
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Acton → injure → episode
For many disgusted voters in Ohio, the choice on Tuesday is now between a woman who at 12 took the stand in court to testify against her mother’s husband – the man charged with raping her, while her mother stood by his side – and a man who allowed that dark story to be twisted into a political attack ad.
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story → take → ad
Maybe after Tuesday, it’s Ramaswamy who will need consoling.
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who → ’ → Tuesday
Meet the candidate: Adam Hamilton
Kansas hasn’t elected a Democrat to the US Senate in nearly 100 years.
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Kansas → meet → years
Adam Hamilton is running to change that.
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Hamilton → run → that
Hamilton, a United Methodist pastor, is challenging the Republican incumbent, Senator Roger Marshall, who was elected in 2020.
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who → challenge → 2020
My colleague, Rachel Leingang, was recently in the unexpected battleground state to catch Hamilton on the campaign trail.
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colleague → catch → trail
Hamilton, a former Republican who had considered running as an independent, regularly points to one of his state’s most famous residents: Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz.
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who → consider → Oz
…and 6 more, not listed.
The Aporia
