The midterms energized a powerful political constituency: abuse survivors

This story was originally published by The 19th.

When Leanna Rocheleau saw the ad that Ohio gubernatorial hopeful Vivek Ramaswamy created, weaponizing his opponent Dr. Amy Acton's childhood sexual abuse, the Columbus-area mother and small business owner felt "triggered."

Rocheleau, like nearly half of all U.S. women, is a survivor of sexual violence, and the ad hit at a gut level. In it, Acton's long-estranged mother suggested her daughter had lied about the well-documented abuse and neglect that Acton had discussed during her campaign. Court records confirmed Acton's account. Ramaswamy spent $4 million airing the ad anyway. Then Acton, a Democrat, won by 8 points in a state where her party hasn't been elected to the governor's mansion in nearly 20 years.

WATCH: Democratic and GOP strategists on the deeply personal attack ad in Ohio

"I was disturbed by the ad — but also fueled to jump back into the fight," said Rocheleau, who has become an activist at the Ohio Statehouse pushing for legislation to protect survivors.

"Being able to have a woman survivor as governor of Ohio? I have high hopes that we're going to be able to move some of this legislation into law," she added.

Rocheleau has been in the fight for about five years now, since her own sexual assault by a massage therapist and the series of obstacles she confronted as she sought justice. She reported the alleged assault to the owners of the facility where it occurred — nothing happened. She went to the local police department — it took them a year to take her official report. A prosecutor told her they would not bring charges due to lack of evidence. She went to the state medical board. Attorneys advised her to wait for the medical board's findings to bring a civil lawsuit. By the time the board's investigation concluded, the statute of limitations had run out. The massage therapist received a six-month suspension after the board's investigation.

"I needed somewhere to put that energy and anger, so I started talking to [state] legislators about changing all of the barriers that I faced," she said.

Rocheleau started talking about her assault during Statehouse hearings and in meetings with lawmakers, urging them to pass legislation protecting survivors. Along the way, she met Chris Graham, a survivor of childhood sexual abuse who has become a well-known advocate in the halls of the Ohio Capitol, organizing fellow survivors and coaching them on how to engage in citizen advocacy.

READ MORE: After a flurry of ethics cases, sexual harassment rules for Congress are under review

Graham and Rocheleau are part of a growing movement of survivors of sexual abuse and gender-based violence who are showing up at statehouses, lobbying the U.S. Congress and coming forward to share their experiences with political candidates — and they're getting results. Sheerine Alemzadeh, the founder of Healing to Action, a grassroots organization focused on ending gender-based violence through survivor leadership, said she thinks of the movement as "a political constituency." She has a book on the subject out next month.

In Ohio, Ramaswamy's ad was seen largely as a desperate attempt to regain momentum in the waning days of a losing campaign. In northern Ohio, U.S. Rep. Max Miller lost a seat that Republicans have held since World War II amid allegations of spousal abuse during a contentious divorce.

Nationally, Graham Platner, a Democratic U.S. Senate candidate in Maine, was pushed out of the race after an ex-girlfriend accused him of rape. U.S. Rep. Jimmy Gomez, a four-term Democrat in California, lost to a Democratic challenger amid a House investigation into potential sexual misconduct. In Arizona, Democrat Bernadette Greene-Placentia, who said she was raped during her House campaign, was trailing her opponent by less than 3 points on Thursday in a district Republicans won by 13 points in 2024. Survivors of the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein toured the country this year calling for the release of investigatory files related to the disgraced financier and urging voters to demand accountability.

In a Wednesday morning note, Liz Roberts, the chief executive of Safe Horizon, the country's largest nonprofit services agency for survivors of abuse and violent crime, called the midterms results "a win for survivors, period."

"We saw candidates accused of sexual assault and abuse withdraw from their campaigns, we saw candidates accused of violence lose their race. A survivor of child abuse, who speaks openly and without shame about her experiences, was called a liar by her opponent in a message backed by millions of dollars and still won. She was believed, not just by the survivor community, but by her constituents, voters, and the public across the nation," Roberts wrote.

READ MORE: House Ethics Committee opens investigation into domestic abuse allegations against Ohio Rep. Max Miller

Graham, who was raped by a priest when he was 14, said the Ramaswamy ad was particularly disturbing because it used Acton's mother against her. Many children who experience sexual abuse do not tell their parents due to fear or shame.

"Amy Acton faced that monster in a way that a lot of people in Ohio, and across the world right now, are thinking to themselves: 'The plan was to never tell anybody about what happened to me but what if I did the opposite? What would that look like?' And they're inspired," Graham said.

At least one in four girls and one in 20 boys is a survivor of childhood sexual abuse, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The average age that adults disclose childhood sexual abuse is 52, according to CHILD USA, a national nonprofit think tank that advocates for children's civil rights.

"There are millions of Ohioans who share this type of background, and it was not only abundantly clear in these election results but on the last leg of that campaign trail," said Jessica Miranda, a Democratic county auditor who served three terms in the Ohio House, from 2019 to 2024.

WATCH: More Democrats call for Platner to drop Maine Senate bid after sexual assault accusation

Miranda worked with Graham on survivor-supportive legislation when she was in the Statehouse after learning that Ohio had some of the most outdated laws related to protecting survivors. In the process of that work, she ended up telling her own story of surviving childhood sexual abuse by an older relative, then being raped when she was 15.

"Being a powerful storyteller is oftentimes what moves the needle in terms of policy change," Miranda said of sharing her experiences.

During her time in the Legislature, Miranda co-sponsored a bill 25 years in the making that banned all forms of spousal rape and another that suspended the statute of limitations for former Boy Scouts to seek civil damages for their abuse in a muti-billion dollar bankruptcy. Both were bipartisan, and signed into law by Republican Gov. Mike DeWine. She also identified a loophole in a Republican bill that created a new misdemeanor criminal charge for sexually grooming a child. "There are certain ramifications of policies that [survivors] will consider more than anyone who hasn't had this type of experience," she said.

Next up, Graham said, is legislation to address the broader issue of statutes of limitations on childhood sexual abuse — Ohio is one of just six states where survivors face a deadline to pursue criminal charges and lawsuits. The bicameral bipartisan bill from state Sen. Bill Blessing, a Republican, and state Rep. Rachel Baker, a Democrat, could drop as early as this week.

And now, a survivor governor could be signing it.

"Amy's nightmare became her origin story, every hero has got one," Graham said.

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