A video featuring a woman identified as Donna Arthur, the mother of Ohio Democratic gubernatorial nominee Amy Acton, calls her daughter a "liar" and urges voters not to back her campaign, in a late-cycle attack that spread rapidly across conservative media on Tuesday.
In the video, the woman says she loves her daughter but accuses her of lying about her opponent. "I love my daughter, but when I saw her lying about her opponent — it's not easy for a mother to say this, but Amy has a serious problem," she says. "My daughter needs help, and she can't help you if she needs help herself. People can change, but first they have to tell the truth, and my daughter still isn't doing that."
The clip was carried by The Gateway Pundit, the conservative outlet with 960,000 followers on X, which posted it Tuesday afternoon with the message: "WHOA! Ohio Gubernatorial Candidate Amy Acton's Mother Appears in Attack Ad: 'She's a Liar… She's lied her entire life.'" The outlet's write-up said the video referenced a 2019 incident in which Acton and her husband got into an argument and her daughter called 911. The daughter told police her mother had been drinking, but no charges were filed.
Coverage of the video spread quickly across outlets. Newsweek reported that the woman, described as Acton's mother, says in the video: "She says she grew up living in a tent. None of that is true." Other coverage described the spot as a "vicious late-cycle attack" and noted that Acton's brother responded to it amid a tightening Ohio gubernatorial race. The Gateway Pundit has previously reported on Acton's past, including allegations of possible alcohol abuse, her appearance on the campaign trail, and a claim by her campaign of an "armed attack" at a campaign event that the outlet said collapsed under scrutiny.
The Gateway Pundit's account of the video also disputed Acton's characterization of fact-checking on ads from her opponent, Vivek Ramaswamy. According to the outlet, Acton has claimed fact-checkers deemed Ramaswamy's ads "false, vile and repulsive," but the outlet said her cited source — an opinion piece by Brent Larkin for cleveland.com criticizing the attacks against Acton — was not a fact check. The outlet also referenced the 2019 incident, writing that the daughter told police her mother had been drinking but that no charges were filed.
In the video, the woman also says: "I love my daughter, but when I saw her lying about her opponent — it's not easy for a mother to say this, but Amy has a serious problem." The Gateway Pundit also reported that Acton has previously been accused of exaggerating or inventing stories about her childhood, including abuse from her stepfather between the ages of nine and twelve.
Next News Network could not independently verify the claims made in the video or the identity of the woman speaking in it.
Our Take
The timing here matters as much as the content. A video of this kind, dropped late in a tightening gubernatorial race and amplified across conservative outlets within hours, is designed less to persuade than to raise doubts. The claim — that Amy Acton's own mother calls her a liar — is powerful precisely because it comes from inside the family, and it lands in a race where Acton's past statements about her childhood and her conduct have already drawn scrutiny. Conservatives should treat the clip as a serious question for the Acton campaign to answer, not as a settled verdict: voters deserve to hear Acton address it directly, and the outlets carrying it should continue pressing for the full record. At the same time, the fact that the video spread so fast is a reminder that in the closing weeks of a campaign, the loudest charge is not always the most verified one. The responsible course is to keep the story alive by demanding answers from the candidate — and to let the evidence, not the outrage cycle, do the work.
