'We Now Deserve to Lose': Ramaswamy Ad Deepens GOP Panic in Ohio

 https://time.com/article/2026/10/21/ramaswamy-s-ad-of-acton-s-estranged-mom-jolts-ohio-races-across-the-ballot/

The fierce and bipartisan backlash to gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy's decision to feature his opponent's estranged mother in an ad left Republicans in Ohio and Washington reeling on Wednesday, as both Ramaswamy and Vice President J.D. Vance doubled down on the divisive strategy.

Mike Murphy, a strategist who was in Sen. John McCain’s inner circle when he ran for President in 2000 and headed Gov. Jeb Bush’s super PAC in 2016, wrote a brutal assessment on social media, saying it “is looking more and more like political suicide.”

And former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, who ran against Ramaswamy in the 2020 presidential primaries and was a frequent critic of him, was even more direct. “He’s a bad guy,” she said. “It’s a shame he continues to get away with it.”

The addition of this ad so close to Election Day roiled races in Ohio up and down the ballot. “I would not have run that ad,” Republican Sen. Jon Husted, running in a tight and expensive race for re-election against Sherrod Brown in Ohio, told The Associated Press on Wednesday. Other players in the state's Republican circles say the ad has all the pieces of a misfire, especially among women.