Steve Hilton’s campaign released a Steve Hilton AD before the Nov. 3 ballot that showed two young women seated in front of a rainbow Pride flag and ended with the line “lick it.” The spot, tagged “Just try it!,” drew quick criticism from California Republicans who said it crossed a line while he tries to broaden his appeal in the California governor race.
The ad also included the line, “Give me your hand, close your eyes, and I’ll do all the work.” Hilton is running against Democrat Xavier Becerra and is trying to persuade California voters to elect a Republican statewide for the first time in two decades.
Sonja Shaw on social media
Sonja Shaw, a conservative Southern California school board president and candidate for state superintendent of public instruction, posted on social media calling the ad “creepy, weird, disturbing garbage.” Her criticism put the backlash in the language of a broader fight inside California Republican politics, where Hilton is seeking votes from outside the party’s core while still needing that base to stay with him.
That tension is sharpened by the ad itself. Hilton’s campaign tried to use suggestive imagery and sexualized content to reach voters who might not normally back a Republican, but the first public reaction came from conservative allies instead of the liberal audience he was trying to court.
Jack Hibbs and Michael Gates
Jack Hibbs said the ad portrayed “an issue regarding lesbianism among college girls and some high school girls that right now is an actual pandemic of social ill.” Michael Gates condemned it for its “sexualized portrayal of young women.” Their comments widened the criticism beyond one social media post and turned the ad into a public test of how far Hilton can stretch his message.
Hilton’s approach fits a longer pattern in his political career. In the 1990s, he worked for the U.K. Conservative Party, and he later became widely credited as former Prime Minister David Cameron’s close adviser on softening the British right’s approach toward LGBTQ couples. In California, though, the same effort to sound more expansive is colliding with conservative voters who reacted first to the ad’s imagery, not its target audience.
California governor race
Hilton’s campaign strategy is described as an “all of the above” effort to win statewide support, and the ad against the rainbow Pride flag is one piece of that push. A second Hilton ad features a parody of a California liberal meditating hippie at a coastal spiritual retreat, showing that the campaign is using separate messages for different audiences.
The immediate question is not whether the spot was noticed — it was — but whether it can help Hilton reach voters outside the Republican base without weakening support inside it. For now, the ad has done the second more visibly than the first.
