Steve Hilton’s new campaign ad for California governor opened with two young women in front of a rainbow Pride flag, then pushed the message further with a mail-in ballot and the line “Just try it!” It ended with the command “lick it,” a hard-edged bid to get attention before the Nov. 3 election.
The ad matters because Hilton is trying to do something rare in California: help elect a Republican statewide for the first time in two decades. He faces Democrat Xavier Becerra on the ballot, and the commercial was built to reach liberal voters rather than reassure the party faithful.
That choice helped make the ad impossible to ignore. Sonja Shaw called it “creepy, weird, disturbing garbage” on social media and said it showed “exactly why good people are walking away from the Republican Party.” Michael Gates objected to its “sexualized portrayal of young women” and singled out the line “What if my dad finds out?” Jack Hibbs also lashed out with homophobic comments, though he said he would still support Hilton.
The backlash lands in a race where the campaign is already making an unusual wager. Hilton has leaned on provocative digital and TV ads before, and the new spot fits that pattern. He worked as an adman for the U.K. Conservative Party in the 1990s and later became a close adviser to David Cameron, where he was widely credited with softening the British right’s approach toward LGBTQ couples. In California, though, his campaign takes a harsher line on transgender girls in girls’ sports, and that split helps explain why the same messaging that may be aimed at persuading moderates is also unsettling conservatives.
What is not clear is whether the ad will move voters outside the party at all. Hilton has chosen a gamble that could create noise faster than support, and the sharper question now is whether the campaign can turn that attention into votes before Nov. 3 or whether it has already told conservative Republicans too much about how it intends to win.
