Hilton's 'Just Try It' Ad Gets 5 Million Views and His Own Party's Wrath

Steve Hilton's California governor campaign just released its most talked-about ad ... and it was his fellow Republicans who made sure everyone saw it.

The ad, posted by Hilton to X on October 1, features two young women in a bedroom decorated with a Progress Pride flag. One woman says "I've never done anything like this before. What if my dad finds out?" The other guides her to fill out a mail ballot for Hilton, ending with "Now lick it" — a reference to sealing the envelope. The tagline: "Just try it." It reached five million views by the weekend, per an AP report via Yahoo News.

Hilton's own party moved fast. Michael Gates, the Republican candidate for attorney general, wrote on X: "I emphatically denounce the use of young women as a political tool." Sonja Shaw, the Republican candidate for state superintendent, called it "creepy, weird, disturbing garbage." Rep. Robert Garcia, a Democratic member of Congress, said it was "a bizarre and desperate ad from a person who has attacked the LGBTQ+ community." State Democratic Party chairman Rusty Hicks also condemned it. The Wrap reported that not everyone on the right agreed with the critics: Spencer Pratt called it "brilliant," and Fox News anchor John Roberts said it would "boldly go where no political ad has gone before."

Hilton defended the approach directly. "It's a provocative and humorous way of making a point, right? Which often the best communication does," he told reporters.

The Free Media Math

Here is the ad industry calculation Hilton is running: paid placement costs money the campaign clearly does not have; earned outrage costs nothing. Every fellow Republican who fired off a condemnation sent the ad to a new audience. Every mainstream outlet that covered the controversy ran the clip for free. Five million views is not what the Hilton campaign bought. It is what his critics bought for him.

This is a playbook brands have used for years. When Novig launched its Sydney Sweeney ad in August 2026, the backlash from athletes and feminist commentators turned a startup betting app into a household name inside two weeks. The mechanics are identical: choose creative that a specific audience will loudly reject, let that audience do the amplification, watch the reach numbers climb without touching the media budget.

Where the Analogy Breaks Down

Novig had a product with genuine momentum behind the controversy. The company reported a billion dollars in cumulative trading volume within weeks of the campaign launch. It secured a CFTC designation as a regulated market. It signed a multiyear deal with the New York Mets. The outrage was the launch pad, but there was something to launch.

Hilton is trailing Xavier Becerra by approximately 22 points in RealClearPolitics polling averages, with the November 3 election four weeks away. A viral ad campaign can shrink the gap between zero name recognition and some name recognition. It is not, in any recent historical example, a mechanism for closing 22 points in a state as large as California. The attention strategy delivered attention. Whether it converts to votes is a different calculation the campaign has not made public.

Hilton emphasized the ad was live-action, professionally directed content and not AI-generated, despite early comparisons to AI-produced political ads that have circulated this cycle. He declined to name the director.

The race is the race. But as a piece of media strategy, the ad did the one thing it was engineered to do: it got everyone talking about Steve Hilton for governor of California. Whether that turns out to matter is the question November 3 will answer.

Ad Watch News is an independent commentary site with no affiliation with Steve Hilton, Xavier Becerra, or any party named here. This piece draws on published sources listed below.

Hilton's 'Just Try It' Ad Gets 5 Million Views and His Own Party's Wrath

The Free Media Math

Where the Analogy Breaks Down

Sources & further reading

Selma Blair Says 'The Brands I Worked With Were Gone Within a Day'

Tom Cruise's 'Digger' Tanks to His Worst Opening Since 2007

UK MP Calls Polymarket's Bank-Failure Bets 'a Bank Run in the Making'