GEOFF BENNETT: The midterm campaign is entering its final stretch, and the attacks are getting increasingly personal.

In Ohio, Republican gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy's campaign is behind an extraordinary attack ad featuring the estranged mother of his Democratic opponent, Amy Acton, disputing Acton's account of her own childhood.

It's a striking example of just how far candidates are willing to go to win votes in this high-stakes election.

For analysis of that and more, we turn tonight to Faiz Shakir here, a Democratic strategist and senior adviser to Senator Bernie Sanders, and longtime Republican strategist Whit Ayres.

Whit, we should note, is on the board of the "News Hour"'s parent organization, WETA.

It's good to see you both.

Thanks for being here.

WHIT AYRES, Republican Strategist: Good to be here.

GEOFF BENNETT: So let's start with this ad from the Vivek Ramaswamy's campaign.

Again, in it, the estranged mother of his Democratic opponent, Amy Acton, challenges Acton's account of her own upbringing, to include allegations of sexual abuse by her stepfather.

Here's part of it.

DONNA ARTHUR, Mother of Amy Acton: It's not easy for a mother to say this, that Amy has a serious problem.

She is a liar.

She lies about her past.

She says she grew up living in a tent.

None of that is true.

GEOFF BENNETT: So this ad is sparking criticism from both sides of the aisle.

What is the political calculation behind an ad like this?

WHIT AYRES: Geoff, there's a widespread assumption in the political consultant community that negative ads work.

And a lot of them do if they're credible, if they're believable, and especially if they use the opponent's words against them.

But it's also possible to do negative ads that blow up your own campaign, those that are simply not believable, that are easily rebutted, or just make your skin crawl.

And that Vivek ad probably qualifies on at least two of those criteria.

GEOFF BENNETT: Is there evidence that attacks like these, these personal attack ads work?

FAIZ SHAKIR, Democratic Strategist: Well, sometimes.

And they're disgusting, so we all note that.

And I think it's important to understand the purpose.

What are they trying to do here?

It's a defensive ad.

You feel like here's a candidate who's losing and is now going to throw a very desperate heave into the end zone to see if they can to win this race.

And I think, in my view, the reason you do this is because you are trying to distract voters.

You have nothing to say on the major issues, whether it's housing or health care, electricity rates, anything that's really going on in the country around gas prices.

So instead of talking about issues, having a debate, you demonize a person.

And this isn't just happening in Ohio, by the way.

You're seeing in Talarico, he has a mental health issue or something.

We got Abdul El-Sayed might be a jihadist and a terrorist.

And we have got Troy Jackson may have some family issues that we're going to talk about.

These are all distractions.

And to the point of whether they work, yes, they can effectively move a discussion into a zone that I don't think the voters really care about.

We will see how it impacts the vote.

GEOFF BENNETT: Vice President J.D.

Vance today, he criticized Republicans who objected to the Ramaswamy ad.

Does that tell us something about where the Trump Republican Party is today, that the controversy isn't the ad itself, but Republicans criticizing the ad?

WHIT AYRES: Well, that's a typical comeback when something like this happens.

But I guarantee you most independent voters and I suspect most Republican voters are not going to appreciate that ad in Ohio.

GEOFF BENNETT: President Trump, he heads to South Carolina tonight after campaigning in North Carolina and Kansas earlier this week.

These are states that Republicans would ordinarily expect to win.

Why is he spending so much time defending Republican territory?

What does that say about the state of the race?

FAIZ SHAKIR: Well, first off, you are -- Democrats are on the front foot in a lot of places that Trump won.

And so he is seeing what we are all seeing, which is that Republican voters are staying home at the moment.

They're not enthused.

They're not excited.

And in fact a lot of people are calling themselves independent, no party preferences.

They're moving off of a Republican Party, and, quite frankly, some even on the Democratic side.

I think it'll be these people, independent-minded folks, who are going to sway this election.

Trump is trying to mobilize his space.

And he does have still a fair amount of support within the Republican Party.

In my view, he's going to these places to try to energize turnout.

However, I think it'll backfire on them, because a lot of these independent-minded folks are upset with his agenda, and I think are very likely to move off of the Republican Party and support some of these Democratic candidates in Kansas and Florida and Texas.

GEOFF BENNETT: How do you see it?

Is the president more valuable on the campaign trail or off of it at this point?

WHIT AYRES: Geoff, it all depends on the state and the district.

But we know that the president is very good at turning out low-propensity voters, those who only vote in presidential elections, or, as we discovered, only vote when Donald Trump's on the ticket, which is why he keeps saying, pretend I'm on the ticket to get these low-propensity voters out.

Every campaign is dependent on getting your base out and also persuading those people who are still up in the air.

We will see if this is effective at getting the base out.

GEOFF BENNETT: A new New York Times/Siena poll puts President Trump's approval rating at 36 percent.

This is a record low in that survey, and it follows similar findings in other national polls.

How much does that complicate things for Republicans in competitive races?

FAIZ SHAKIR: Well, it complicates it a lot.

They're not going before the voters with an agenda.

And right now there is a lot of anger and a desire for people to hear some solutions.

I mean, think about health care.

What are you going to do to make sure my costs on health care go down?

What are you going to do to make sure gas prices go down?

And so, when he's going out and talking -- and I welcome the president to keep campaigning everywhere he'd like to go, because he still hasn't found a message.

He's not saying to the voters, keep me in office, keep my Republican rubber stamps all over this nation because we have got this great agenda that we're going to bring to you.

So, at this stage, the opportunity is here for the Democrats.

The opportunity is for realignment of a lot of voters.

And I suspect we're going to see it on November 3, a lot of people who ordinarily would not call themselves Democrats who are going to say, I'm giving you a chance.

And with that chance is an opportunity to change a lot of red states in America.

GEOFF BENNETT: What's the risk if Democrats essentially try to nationalize every race and make every Republican candidate answer for President Trump?

WHIT AYRES: Geoff, we know that the single most important statistic in midterm elections is the president's job approval.

The president's party almost always loses seats.

So the last 80 years, the only exceptions were 1998 and 2002.

But the number of seats lost is heavily dependent on the president's job approval.

When the president is above 50 percent, the average number of House seats lost is 14.

When the president's job approval is below 50 percent, the average loss of House seats is 32.

The problem for Republicans right now is that the president's job approval keeps ticking down, ticking down every day, and he keeps taking positions that make it worse.

Siding with Putin and Russia against Ukraine is a major problem.

If you ask Americans, are they more sympathetic to Russia or are they more sympathetic to Ukraine, the percentage of Americans more sympathetic to Russia is 4, not 40, 4.

So the president has put himself in a position and taken a position that is not shared by 96 percent of Americans.

That doesn't help his job approval go up, and that's what Republicans need right now.

GEOFF BENNETT: Whit Ayres and Faiz Shakir, thanks to you both.

FAIZ SHAKIR: Thanks, Geoff.

WHIT AYRES: Pleasure.