Steve Hilton, the Republican candidate for governor of California, has political friends and foes a bit worked up with his new campaign commercial.

The pro-Trump pundit’s suggestive, one-minute ad spot shows a pair of young women sitting in a dimly lit bedroom while one tries to coax the other to step out of her comfort zone.

Anxiously holding her arm, a woman wearing a “RESIST” T-shirt says, “I can’t believe I’m doing this.”

“Don’t be nervous. It’s not that bad,” her friend replies, tenderly brushing her pal’s blue hair behind her ear as the shot pulls back to show an LGBTQ+ progress flag hanging behind them.

“I’ve never done anything like this before,” the other responds, her voice faltering ever so slightly. “Like, what if my dad finds out?”

“Just try it. Look, give me your hand. Close your eyes and I’ll do all the work,” the pink-haired pal reassures before slowly drawing their hands down out of frame.

As the blue-haired woman lets out a sigh of relief, the camera pans down to show her marking Hilton on her ballot.

“I think I liked it,” she says, smiling, as her friend tells her, “Now lick it” and pulls out the mail-in ballot envelope.

The campaign ad, titled “Just Try It, California,” seemed to scandalize several of Hilton’s GOP allies.

Michael Gates, the Republican candidate for attorney general, condemned the ad’s “sexualization of young people” in a lengthy statement on X where he told followers, “California families deserve better.”

Meanwhile, Sonja Shaw, who is running for state superintendent of schools, replied to an X post video telling Hilton, the California Republican Party and its chairwoman Corrin Rankin, “Shame on you ... for reposting and cheering this creepy, weird, disturbing garbage.”

“This is a clear example of exactly why good people are walking away from the Republican Party,” Shaw’s post went on. “As a mother and someone who has fought to protect the innocence of children, this crosses a line. We have lost our way. Embarrassing.”

On the other side of the aisle, Hilton’s political adversaries reacted with a mix of indignation and schadenfreude.

Rep. Robert Garcia, a Democrat representing the Long Beach area and a member of the Congressional Equality Caucus, told the Los Angeles Times, “This is a bizarre and desperate ad from a person who has attacked the LGBTQ+ community and stands with Donald Trump.”

Jonathan Underland, a spokesman for Hilton’s gubernatorial opponent Xavier Becerra, told the Los Angeles Times the video perfectly captured Hilton’s values — or lack thereof — telling the paper, “MAGA is melting down over Steve Hilton’s creepy ad because they’re finally seeing him for the sellout he really is, willing to abandon his own twisted values to get ahead.”

Hilton responded to the uproar in a nearly five-minute social media video on Saturday, where he called the reactions “overwhelmingly” positive and apologized to those who were offended by the ad.

Asking skeptics for “grace” and understanding, he added, “We’re going to be doing things that you love and some things that you may not love so much, but it’s all motivated by the same thing: my love for this beautiful state and for all of you.”

Despite Hilton’s plea for Californians to try something new, a recent poll from the University of California, Berkeley showed support for both gubernatorial candidates split down party lines, while Becerra holds a 26-point advantage with unaffiliated voters. Overall, Becerra is outpolling Hilton 58% to 33%.

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