Candace Owens Won't 'Lift a Finger' for Vivek Ramaswamy Over Rival's Mother Ad

Conservative podcaster Candace Owens said she would not "lift a finger" to help Vivek Ramaswamy's campaign for Ohio governor. She called the Republican's ad featuring Democrat Amy Acton's estranged mother "very, very dumb" and predicted that Republicans would blame her and Tucker Carlson if they lose next month.

Owens made the remarks on her show Candace in an episode released Wednesday. The ad has split Ohio Republicans with less than two weeks to go before the election, and it lands in the governor's race PolitiKool tracks as one of the closest in the country.

Candace Owens Breaks With Ramaswamy Campaign

Owens said the ad was the latest misstep in what she called bad Republican messaging. She said she tends to think Ramaswamy is very smart, but "This was not very smart at all."

"I'm waiting for the part where Republicans get completely slaughtered, and then they somehow blame me and Tucker, because I think that's coming," Owens said.

"I would not lift a finger to help what this campaign has become, what it is defending, the evil, the horror show." — Candace Owens

Her refusal applied to the Ramaswamy campaign. She did not endorse Acton, and she said Republicans should not have touched the subject at all.

Owens said the campaign "hadn't actually released it yet" when it began circulating online. That matched early reporting. The one-minute video first turned up through an Ohio political blogger, without the legally required "paid for" disclosure, PBS NewsHour reported. The campaign confirmed late Tuesday that it made the ad and said it would spend $4 million promoting it.

What the Acton Ad Says

In the video, Acton's mother, Donna Arthur, tells viewers, "Amy has a serious problem. She is a liar." The campaign said Arthur was not paid.

Owens said the campaign "booked her mother to call her a liar." She also cited a court case that she said showed Acton and her brother were taken from their mother: "Her and her brother were removed from her mother's custody after abuse from their stepfather." Acton's brother, Philip Stearns, has said that he and Acton were removed from the Arthurs' custody, CBS News reported.

The Ramaswamy campaign's spokesperson, Connie Luck, aimed her response at the media's coverage. "We refuse to accept the media's double standards when Democrats have regularly used family members of President Trump, RFK Jr., and other Republicans in ads," she said, also arguing that Acton's side went after Ramaswamy's mother first, NBC News reported.

Laura Loomer Defends the Ad as Ohio Republicans Split

Owens also turned on Laura Loomer, the far-right activist and Trump ally, who defended the ad. Before reading Loomer's post aloud, Owens said a good test is whether Loomer is on her side of an issue. If the answer is yes, she said, "I'm probably doing the wrong thing."

She then read the post, which said: "The GOP is full of losers who hate winning" and "I am on the side of Amy's mother."

"Yeah, I'm sure you are, you little Bolshevik princess," Owens replied.

Ohio's top Republicans have kept their distance. Governor Mike DeWine said on Thursday that the ad was "deeply, deeply troubling" and called on the campaign to remove it, though he kept his endorsement of Ramaswamy.

Other party leaders backed the campaign. Trump called the ad "very powerful" on Truth Social and said DeWine was "disloyal to the Republican Party." Vice President JD Vance told Republicans to "stop whining about an advertisement and go win," NBC News reported.

Ohio Governor Polling: Acton vs. Ramaswamy

The ad goes up in a race that was already tight. Acton leads Ramaswamy 49 percent to 47.4 percent in PolitiKool's polling average, a margin of 1.6 points.

Individual polls have looked better for Acton. A Marist poll conducted October 15 to 18 found her ahead 50 percent to 43 percent among likely voters, with a margin of error of 4.5 points. Marist's September survey had her up six points among registered voters.

Both Marist surveys were taken before the ad surfaced. The first polls taken since it began airing will show whether the $4 million behind it moves voters, or moves them away from Ramaswamy, before Election Day on November 3.