Ohio Republican gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy's odds on prediction markets crashed Tuesday amid backlash to a widely circulated video involving the long-estranged mother of Amy Acton, his Democratic opponent. Prediction market site Kalshi posted to X on Tuesday, saying that Acton hit a new high with a 76 percent chance of winning the governor's mansion. ET, Ramaswamy's odds sunk to 26.8 percent, a new low on the site.
Polymarket similarly posted on Tuesday that Ramaswamy's odds crashed to a new low of 30 percent. ET, the Republican's odds dipped further on the site to 22 percent. The prediction market lows come on the heels of a video clip shared on X, including by journalist and podcast host Walter Curt's account.
"My name is Donna Arthur, and I’m Amy Acton’s mother," the speaker says at the start of the video. She continued, saying, "I love my daughter" but accused her of lying about her opponent and upbringing, saying, "Amy has a serious problem; she is a liar." The woman said that Amy "has lied her entire life," adding that she needs help. "Don’t let her become your governor," the speaker later adds.
The video posted to Curt's X account has been seen over 5 million times and reposted over 9,000 times. The statements by Acton’s mother in the video clip are allegations, not independently established facts, while published accounts describe Acton’s childhood as unsettled. The Democratic gubernatorial candidate told Spectrum News, a cable news outlet in Ohio, in part that she "was removed from [her birth mother] at the age of 12," the reported.
Her parents divorced when she was 3 years old, and she lived in around 18 homes by age 12 while moving frequently with her mom and spent one winter in a tent at a campground, local outlet WKBN27 reported. The video clip of Acton’s mom does not explicitly explain when the video was made or who financed its production. While speaking to reporters Tuesday night, Ramaswamy took credit for the ad, saying, "It is an ad from our campaign." "The thing that I want to say is that I would love for this race and this election to be about the substantive issues that impact Ohioans, and unfortunately Amy Acton has been hiding from those issues, she won't debate me," he added.
In a sharply worded statement provided to Newsweek earlier Tuesday by Acton’s campaign, Philip Stearns accused Ramaswamy of exploiting his sister’s account of childhood sexual abuse for political purposes and condemned the video as a personal attack. Newsweek has reached out to Ramaswamy's campaign via email on Tuesday for comment regarding the backlash and new lows in prediction markets. As the video circulated social media on Tuesday, people vocalized their opposition to the ad.
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