{"id":871363,"date":"2026-10-05T08:14:10","date_gmt":"2026-10-05T08:14:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/871363\/"},"modified":"2026-10-05T08:14:10","modified_gmt":"2026-10-05T08:14:10","slug":"provocative-sexually-suggestive-ad-by-hilton-campaign-condemned-by-political-allies-on-the-right","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/871363\/","title":{"rendered":"Provocative, sexually suggestive ad by Hilton campaign condemned by political allies on the right"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A provocative, sexually suggestive ad by GOP gubernatorial candidate Steve Hilton is drawing heat from his fellow Republicans while drawing millions of viewers online.<\/p>\n

Two young women sit on a bed, with an LGBTQ+ flag in the background, with one urging the other to try a new experience.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can\u2019t believe I\u2019m doing this,\u201d one woman says, and the other replies. \u201cDon\u2019t be nervous. It\u2019s not that bad … Just try it. Look, give me your hand. Close your eyes, and I\u2019ll do all the work.\u201d<\/p>\n

She leads the hesitant woman\u2019s hand to mark her ballot for Hilton rather than Democrat Xavier Becerra, the front-runner in the race, and says, \u201cNow lick it,\u201d referring to the mail ballot envelope.<\/p>\n

Fellow Republicans as well as several Democrats denounced Hilton over the messaging.<\/p>\n

A member of Hilton\u2019s GOP \u201cGolden Ticket\u201d on the Nov. 3 ballot lashed out about the ad\u2019s content.<\/p>\n

\u201cI emphatically denounce the use of young women as a political tool,\u201d Michael Gates, the Republican candidate for attorney general who has frequently appeared alongside Hilton at campaign events, wrote on X. \u201cCalifornia families deserve better, and as AG, I will fight every day to protect our girls, young women, and parental rights.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sonja Shaw, who is running to be the next state superintendent of schools and has occasionally campaigned alongside Hilton, castigated him, the state Republican Party and its chairwoman for promoting the ad, which had been viewed by nearly 5 million people as of Saturday afternoon<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cShame on you … for reposting and cheering this creepy, weird, disturbing garbage,\u201d Shaw wrote on X. \u201cThis is a clear example of exactly why good people are walking away from the Republican Party. As a mother and someone who has fought to protect the innocence of children, this crosses a line. We have lost our way. Embarrassing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Long Beach), an out gay member of Congress, and state Democratic Party Chairman Rusty Hicks also condemned the ad.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a bizarre and desperate ad from a person who has attacked the LGBTQ+ community and stands with Donald Trump,\u201d Garcia said. \u201cHilton is losing and more interested in AI slop than actually talking about issues Californians care about.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hilton acknowledged the ad had provoked strong reactions, but it underscored the foundation of his campaign \u2014 that many Californians may be put off by his party affiliation but want change given the state\u2019s myriad problems, such as growing unaffordability, that have taken place under a Democratic lock of every statewide office and the state Legislature.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re just saying, you know, just try it,\u201d he said in an interview. \u201cIt\u2019s a provocative and humorous way of making a point, right? Which often the best communication does.\u201d<\/p>\n

He also said the ad does not conflict with his beliefs about restrictions on gender-affirming care and on youth sports because those would only apply to people who are not adults.<\/p>\n

Hours after The Times\u2019 interview with Hilton, he posted an online video acknowledging that some were unhappy with the ad and expressed remorse that it caused them pain.<\/p>\n

\u201cOverwhelmingly, the reaction has been positive,\u201d he said. \u201cBut it\u2019s also true that many people, many of you, may have been offended by that ad. Now, of course, that was never anybody\u2019s intention. We were trying to make a point in a provocative way, in a satirical way, no one was ever trying to offend anyone. But I know that many of you are offended, and I\u2019ve had those conversations, and it grieves me to understand how that made you feel. And I really want to say to you very directly that I get it, that I understand it.\u201d<\/p>\n

A spokesman for Becerra, who led Hilton 58% to 33%<\/a> in a recent UC Berkeley\/Los Angeles Times poll, was gleeful about the rift the ad was creating among Republicans.<\/p>\n

\u201cMAGA is melting down over Steve Hilton\u2019s creepy ad because they\u2019re finally seeing him for the sellout he really is, willing to abandon his own twisted values to get ahead,\u201d said Jonathan Underland.<\/p>\n

However, some conservatives who were dismayed by the message stood by Hilton\u2019s side.<\/p>\n

Pastor Jack Hibbs of Calvary Chapel Chino Hills, a Christian nationalist, called the ad \u201cgrotesque\u201d and said it promoted lesbianism among young women, on a Facebook Live post Saturday. However, he said he still supports Hilton over Becerra. He did not respond to requests for comment.<\/p>\n

Hilton is scheduled to speak on Monday to a chapter of the Log Cabin Republicans, an LGBTQ group, at a brewery in Palm Desert. The organization did not respond to requests for comment.<\/p>\n

Former California GOP chairwoman Jessica Millan Patterson said that while the ad wasn\u2019t for her, she understood the campaign\u2019s desire to expand its reach to different voters. <\/p>\n

\u201cDoes the ad speak to me? No. He\u2019s not going after my vote. He already has my vote. He\u2019s trying to think of new and creative ways to make people who wouldn\u2019t normally feel like voting for a Republican feel safe to do so,\u201d she said. \u201cHe\u2019s going out of his comfort zone and going for people that wouldn\u2019t normally feel comfortable voting for him.\u201d<\/p>\n

Californian Fred Karger, a Republican who made history in 2012 as the first out gay person to run for president, had mixed views about the ad, calling it shrewd yet hypocritical. And he questioned its effectiveness.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe audience that he\u2019s targeting there \u2014 the hipster, young hipster, lesbian audience \u2014 probably has a 1% chance of voting for him,\u201d Karger said. \u201cSo it\u2019s kind of a long shot. But it is a clever ad.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A provocative, sexually suggestive ad by GOP gubernatorial candidate Steve Hilton is drawing heat from his fellow Republicans…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":871364,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[20303,23,18054,235661,18291,367190,88495,367189,37460,3,3590,16650,367192,13109,367191,21,19,22,20,25,24,20433,178420],"class_list":["post-871363","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-states","tag-ad","tag-america","tag-ballot","tag-becerra","tag-comment","tag-fellow-republicans","tag-hilton","tag-hilton-campaign","tag-member","tag-news","tag-people","tag-request","tag-sonja-shaw","tag-state","tag-suggestive-ad","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa","tag-x","tag-young-woman"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/871363","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=871363"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/871363\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/871364"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=871363"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=871363"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=871363"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}