Governor DeWine,

Ohio’s children services agencies called you “the children’s Governor” because of your longtime commitment to standing up for our kids. As Greene County prosecutor, you saw firsthand what abuse does to kids. In the U.S. Senate, you wrote the part of the Adoption and Safe Families Act that says a child’s safety must come first when deciding whether to return abused or neglected children to their biological parents. As Attorney General, you rebuilt Ohio’s foster care system after children died in state care and launched a unit dedicated to arresting and convicting child predators.

That record is why we are writing to you now.

Vivek Ramaswamy’s campaign is spending $4 million to air an ad featuring Dr. Amy Acton’s estranged mother, who stood by the man indicted for sexually abusing her children and fled the state with him to avoid consequences. Dr. Acton and her brother were removed from their mother’s custody because of the abuse. Yet she remained married to their abuser until he died. Court records corroborate the criminal case against him.

Now that mother is calling her daughter – your former Health Director – a liar, in an ad paid for by the candidate you have endorsed.

You have spent your career making sure the system believes children and protects them from the adults who failed them. This ad tells every survivor in Ohio that if they speak up, their abuser’s side of the family can be turned into a weapon against them.

Members of your own administration and party have already condemned it. We are asking you to do the same, and to withdraw your support for Vivek Ramaswamy. Ohio’s children, and the adults they grow up to be, deserve a governor who protects survivors, not one who exploits their trauma to win an election.