Ohio’s governor’s race turned vicious this week when Republican candidate Vivek Ramaswamy released an ad featuring Donna Arthur, the estranged mother of his Democratic opponent, Amy Acton. Arthur accused Acton of lying about her past and urged Ohioans not to vote for her.

Acton and her brother responded with a devastating account of their family history. Arthur lost custody of Acton when Acton was 12 because Arthur’s husband at the time sexually assaulted her.

Arthur supported her husband during his prosecution, left the state with him, and helped him avoid justice for more than 20 years, until he died. Acton said she had not heard from her mother in decades before the campaign ad appeared.

The smear was so appalling that even National Review published reporting showing that court records supported Acton’s account. Yet the episode also exposed an ugly contradiction in conservative rhetoric about divorced men, one of the country’s most Republican demographic groups.

Polls showed 54% of divorced men supporting Donald Trump in 2024, compared with 42% of divorced women. The aggrieved family court father has become a familiar character at MAGA rallies.

By all accounts cited in the story, Acton’s actual father repeatedly tried to obtain custody of Acton and her brother. He ultimately raised them after Arthur left, and Acton credited him with encouraging her ambitions.

“My dad always told me I could be in life whatever I wanted to be,” Acton told a local interviewer in 2019. His experience resembled the conservative story of an honest father mistreated by his former wife and family court, but Ramaswamy’s attack ignored him in favor of Arthur.

Another Republican’s involvement in a family tragedy has received less attention. In Texas, Attorney General Ken Paxton’s office had an opportunity to seek an indictment after a father was shot dead, but the grand jury declined to indict the shooter.

The confrontation happened in Lubbock on November 5, 2021. Chad Read arrived to pick up his children at property owned by Kyle Carruth, the boyfriend of Read’s former wife, Christina Read.

Read’s new wife, Jennifer Read, remained in the car and recorded the encounter on her phone. She later released the video publicly while seeking justice for her husband.

The video shows Chad Read and Christina Read arguing over her apparent failure to follow their custody agreement. Carruth demanded that Read leave, while Read insisted he was there to pick up his son and threatened legal action.

Christina appeared to acknowledge that the child should have been ready but said she “wanted to see him.” Read replied, “I get him at 3:15 p.m. If you want to see him, you see him up until 3:15. You keep trying to keep my son from me.”

Carruth then emerged with a shotgun, and the confrontation rapidly escalated. Read moved close to Carruth, shouted insults, grabbed the gun’s barrel during a scuffle, and exchanged shoves with him.

Carruth broke free, turned, and shot Read in the chest at close range. Read died at the scene.

The Lubbock district attorney recused from the case because Carruth was divorcing local state judge Ann-Marie Carruth. Paxton’s office took control of the investigation, and on March 31, 2022, Paxton announced that the grand jury he had empaneled voted against criminal indictments.

The Texas law firm Pullan & Young explained that state law includes some “stand your ground” style legal structures, but with strict requirements. A person must reasonably believe violence is “immediately necessary to prevent serious bodily harm,” cannot have provoked the confrontation, and cannot use excessive force.

Bringing a shotgun into a custody dispute involving an unarmed man, then shooting him after a shoving match, appears far beyond those boundaries. Without the gun, the dispute could have returned to family court, ended with the child being produced, or resulted in a fistfight rather than a death.

Paxton’s campaign did not respond to an emailed request for comment. The article argues that a traditional tough on crime prosecutor could have secured an indictment because prosecutors enjoy broad control over the evidence shown to grand juries.

Republicans eagerly court divorced men with grievances about former wives and family courts. But pursuing Carruth would also have required Paxton to confront Texas gun rights politics, and the grand jury’s decision spared him that choice.