SCOTT SIMON, HOST:
Midterm politics grew especially ugly this week in Ohio. The Republican candidate for governor, Vivek Ramaswamy, released an attack ad against his Democratic opponent, Amy Acton. The ad featured Acton's estranged mother who called her daughter a liar and urged Ohioans not to vote for her. But a lot of context - much of it sad and upsetting - was missing from that ad. And before we go on, please be aware we're about to talk about allegations of sexual abuse. NPR senior political contributor Ron Elving joins us. Ron, thanks for being with us.
RON ELVING, BYLINE: Good to be with you, Scott.
SIMON: Legal documents from nearly 50 years ago show that Amy Acton, then 12, and her younger brother were removed from their mother's home following their stepfather's arrest. He was charged with sexual conduct with a minor, fled the state with their mother. He died without facing trial. Amy Acton says he raped her and that she had been sexually abused beginning when she was just 9 years old. The ad has been condemned, including by the current Republican governor, and yet, Ramaswamy continues to defend it. Why?
ELVING: There's an old expression I think we all know - in for a dime in for a dollar. If you're going to risk your statewide campaign and the tens of millions of dollars that Elon Musk and others have invested in it, if you are already risking all that on this kind of tactics - this ad that's divided the Republican Party in Ohio and nationally - then it's not surprising that you choose to defend it. The same goes for Ramaswamy backers, like Vice President JD Vance, who condemned, but rather Republicans who criticized it, calling them whiners - or, for that matter, President Trump, who could have easily stayed out of it but waded in with both feet, telling Ramaswamy to keep the ad running.
SIMON: Is this something with a potential damage to not just Ramaswamy, but other Republicans this election?
ELVING: It might well be in Ohio, where this has dominated conversation, it could blow back on the party's embattled Senate incumbent, Jon Husted, who's in a tight race for reelection against Democratic former Senator Sherrod Brown. Beyond that, any campaigning of this sort, any controversy like this, it just tends to be dispiriting and may discourage people who don't just automatically turn out for midterms.
SIMON: Yesterday, with less than two weeks to go in this election, the Department of Justice filed a lawsuit with a special request of a federal judge about the U.S. Senate race in Alaska. Please tell us about this.
ELVING: Yes. The state of Alaska has a ranked-choice system where the primary election sends several top finishers on to November regardless of party. So the incumbent Senator Dan Sullivan is on the ballot as a Republican, and there's another Dan Sullivan - different middle initial - who also got enough primary votes for the fall ballot. Now, he's not the official Republican Party candidate, even though he's a registered Republican. That's legal in Alaska, but it angered the president, so he sent in the Justice Department to sue to block the certification of results in this election if Trump's preferred Dan Sullivan doesn't win.
We saw Trump in his first term getting angry with people in his Justice Department who pushed back on some of his orders, who chose to follow the law and previous policy instead. Trump has since tried to get rid of those people and replace them with lawyers who will do what he wants. So there are many who fear what might be next if Trump isn't pleased with the election results around the country 10 days from now.
SIMON: Ron, I understand the Brewers were going to call you in to pinch hit last night but won despite that. What's it feel like in Milwaukee?
ELVING: (Laughter) Oh, my goodness. You and I both grew up in Chicago, Scott. We're Cub fans for life, but it turns out that grandsons have a way of scrambling even one's baseball loyalties.
SIMON: Well, NPR's Ron Elving. Thanks so much for being with us.
ELVING: Thank you, Scott. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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