Amid efforts by both campaigns to push policy ideas like tax cuts and education reform, the ad war has boiled down to attacks portraying Ramaswamy as a conman and Acton as a drunk. The latter is based on an August 2019 incident in which police responded to an incident in Acton’s home that Acton has accused Ramaswamy of dramatically mischaracterizing, to the point that she refused to share a debate stage with him. Ramaswamy has also refuted allegations his fortune came from misleading investors.

On Tuesday, the race took an even nastier turn. An anti-Acton video surfaced online starring Acton’s mother, who has not spoken to her daughter since 1978. In the ad, she calls her daughter a “liar”—not over the candidate’s allegations that she was molested and raped by her stepfather, who was indicted, but her claims she spent time as a homeless youth.

“Don’t let her become your Governor,” Acton’s mother Donna Arthur says in the video. “If you think she’ll make your life better, you’re fooling yourself. It will only get worse.” It is not at all clear who created the ad, who funded it, or if it is destined for broadcast. Still, its existence was a stunning escalation in a race that may set the new standard for mudslinging, so much so that Philip Stearns, Acton’s brother, released a statement calling the ad “a despicable low.”