Campaigns drag grieving families into midterm attack ads
Summary
Several 2026 midterm campaigns are using images, recordings, or accounts tied to family tragedies in attack ads, sometimes without the families’ consent. Some families have demanded that ads be withdrawn, while one survivor says she chose to share her story to criticize a politician’s decision.Key Facts
- Georgia Republican gubernatorial nominee Rick Jackson used images of murdered 8-year-old Secoriea Turner and her mother's 911 call in ads attacking Democrat Keisha Lance Bottoms.
- Turner's family said the campaign used their grief without permission and demanded that the ads be removed; Jackson said he would continue airing them.
- Ohio Republican gubernatorial nominee Vivek Ramaswamy's campaign is spending $4 million on an ad featuring his Democratic opponent Amy Acton's estranged mother, Donna Arthur.
- Acton has said her late stepfather sexually abused her as a child; her brother corroborated her account, and court records and contemporary news reports support key details.
- President Trump urged Ramaswamy to continue the attack on Acton, despite objections from some Republicans.
- A Republican ad against former Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown used images of a family killed in a highway crash to criticize Brown's immigration policies; the family demanded the ad's removal.
- A Republican super PAC linked the murder of a North Carolina man's son to former Gov. Roy Cooper's prison policies; fact-checkers found no connection between the killer and Cooper's prisoner-release agreement.
- In Nebraska, Jody Snogren voluntarily appeared in an ad criticizing Sen. Pete Ricketts for pardoning a man who had pleaded guilty to raping her; she said she had no regrets about sharing her story. Ricketts defended the pardon.
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