Vivek Ramaswamy wasn't doing well before he began airing an infamous ad from the mother of his opponent, who protected a child abuser. After the ad, and his subsequent doubling down with $4 million, his chances were slim.
As of Tuesday night, NBC has called the Ohio governor's race for Democrat Amy Acton.
Ramaswamy's polling showed him behind over the summer, but the New York Times polling aggregator shows he was within the margin of error. As the election drew near, Marist University's poll showed Acton was seven points ahead.
Then came the infamous ad. Acton's estranged mother appeared in a commercial attacking her daughter as a liar. Behind that attack were decades of accusations that Acton's mother protected her husband over her daughter when her stepfather began molesting her at age 9. By 12, Acton and her brother, Philip Stearns, were taken away from their mother and the stepfather was charged. He quickly fled the state and was never caught, tried or jailed.
Acton's brother has spoken out about that time in their lives and how his loving sister protected him as much as she could.
"It's not surprising that Vivek Ramaswamy has stooped to such a despicable low as to attempt to turn the sexual abuse Amy endured at 12 years old from our birth mother's husband into a political talking point," Stearns said in a statement the campaign provided.
"My team, everyone's been sharing documents from that time. My brother and I experienced extreme abuse and neglect over a period of many years, not just at the hands of her husband, but also at her," Acton said.
After the ad scandal broke, Ramaswamy’s odds crashed to a new low, according to prediction market Kalshi. Two weeks before the election, Acton hit a new high with a 76 percent chance of winning the race. Eleven days before the election, his odds sank to 18 percent.
Acton's strength appears to be her focus on affordability and her personal credibility.
From the start, her campaign emphasized tax relief for working families, cheaper prescriptions, medical debt relief and lower utility costs, presenting government as something that should solve everyday problems rather than manufacture political fights.
Her own biography was connected to that as a survivor of abuse and homelessness. She has spoken openly about growing up in poverty in Youngstown and working several jobs so that one day she could be a doctor. It wasn't merely an economic message for her, it was about her own survival and hardship.
