It took 10 long, brutal days, but it appears that Ohio’s GOP gubernatorial nominee Vivek Ramaswamy is crying uncle: His campaign will stop airing his “rapist protector mom” ad.
As Zeteo reported earlier this week, Republicans warned Ramaswamy against running the ad in the first place. Then the ad leaked, and Team Vivek announced it was plowing millions into promoting it. President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance both publicly embraced the disgusting attack.
Behind closed doors, very little of this went over well with the state’s other Republican Party bigwigs, many of whom were furious at Ramaswamy for doing something that could imperil the elections of others on the Ohio GOP ticket, people with knowledge of the matter tell Zeteo. For days, sources add, Ramaswamy staff and close allies were bombarded with calls and private pleas from conservatives imploring them to pull the ad.
And, as Axios first reported, this was happening as internal GOP polling showed his standing sinking dramatically as a result of the ad.
“Our numbers cratered, everyone screamed at us, I don’t want to ever repeat anything like this again,” a Ramaswamy ally says. “We could not escape it.”