With a controversy surrounding the candidate at the top of the ticket, Republicans running for statewide office embarked on a bus tour throughout Ohio Friday morning.
During the 11-day tour, the bus plans 33 stops in 32 counties. The stops on the first day included a pancake breakfast in Strongsville, a pizza shop in southern Delaware County Friday afternoon, and the Circleville Pumpkin Show in the evening.
In Delaware County, candidate for governor Vivek Ramaswamy told the crowd it is important for them to get out and vote for Republicans. He said not only is his Democratic opponent, Amy Acton, incompetent to lead, "she is also a serial liar who has been dishonest."
And once again, Ramaswamy doubled down on his decision to spend $4 million on TV and digital ads feature Acton's estranged mother, Donna Arthur, saying her daughter "lies about her past" and cannot be trusted.
Acton has said she saw Arthur in a courtroom in 1978, when she was 12 and testified against Arthur's husband on charges that he raped her. Arthur lost custody of her daughter and son Philip Stearns and left the state with Cledith Arthur before he stood trial. He died in 2004. Stearns is now featured in ads for Acton, saying he and his sister were abused as children and lived in a tent at one point.
Controversy over the ads has made national and international news. But in Delaware County, Ramaswamy blamed the media for getting it all wrong.
"The media will lie. The media will deflect. The media will do everything in their power to try to prop up the Democrat game. We are not going to fall for their tricks," Ramaswamy said.
Ramaswamy said Acton had lied about him and "now they don't want to answer for that." He has accused Acton of lying about the development of a failed Alzheimer's drug by his biopharmaceutical company. And he said Democrats are changing the subject "to something else totally different that the ad had nothing to do with, which is about childhood abuse. And I will go on record again and say that I will be the strongest governor in prosecuting childhood abuse or any other type of abuse."
Some of those who attended said they were sold on what they heard.
"I think it's good vs. bad and I like the character, what I heard in there," said Marti Davis of Delaware County. "Just the character of the people and the fact that they had faith."
Dave Eby, a former three-term trustee for Orange Township in Delaware County, said he is not supporting Acton: "She's not stable. She's got no business in Ohio politics."
Not all of the statewide candidates are on the bus at the same time.
Treasurer Robert Sprague, who's running for secretary of state, joined the tour in Delaware County. U.S. Sen Jon Husted met up at a rally the home of a Republican strategist in Circleville, near the annual pumpkin show. So did Secretary of State and auditor candidate Frank LaRose, former lawmaker and candidate for treasurer Jay Edwards and attorney general candidate Auditor Keith Faber.
About a dozen protestors lined the green space around the pizza shop's parking lot, holding signs supporting Acton.
In an interview, Acton's running mate said, "it will be an interesting bus ride because some on the bus have denounced the ad that Ramaswamy was defending."
"Half of the ticket has said that they wouldn't have run the ad," said Democratic candidate for lieutenant governor David Pepper. "Vivek Ramaswamy has managed to unify the country as to how repulsive that ad is."
And Pepper said he hopes the GOP bus tour goes to Trenton and other communities where data centers are up for a local vote. "Right now, on that bus, is the single biggest champion of data centers in the country, running for office, invested to the hilt in those data centers."
This week and with less than two weeks to go, both the Cook Political Report and Sabato's Crystal Ball shifted the governor's race between Acton and Ramaswamy from a toss-up to "lean Democrat."
