It raised some eyebrows when it ran during the Super Bowl and now the controversy has gone national. Still, Michigan Senate candidate Pete Hoekstra is standing by his ad.

It features a young asian woman speaking in broken English.

"Your economy gets very weak, ours get very good," she says, smiling into the camera. "We take your jobs, thank you Debbie spend it now."

Hoekstra said Monday he doesn't feel the ad is insensitive or racist, but admitted it was an agressive approach.

The Republican's camp spent $150,000 on the Super Bowl spot and its two week run. He is calling the ad straight facts, but some are calling for an apology.

"It was rather offensive," Noel Copiaco, with Mid-Michigan's Asian Pacific American Association said. The non-profit group promotes cross-cultural understanding.

"Even though many of us were born and raised in this country at first glance people still look at us as foreigners and so an ad like this might create more polarization," Copiaco added.

Hoekstra says the ad targets democratic Senator Debbie Stabenow.

"This stuff is about as fact checked and as acurate as you can get in terms of saying this is the difference between Debbie and Pete, Debbie is for spending, Pete is not," he said. "I don't see anything nasty in this ad at all."

Hoekstra says it wasn't meant to be critical of the Chinese. He argues the ad is only insensitive to Stabenow.

The Senator mainly sidestepped the issue in a Monday phone conference, but talked with News 10 this weekend.

"The Super Bowl is a very positive time, it's unfortunate that folks are inserting something negative in the middle of a big positive American pastime," she said. "I think Pete Hoekstra should be very embarrased about his ad and it's divisiveness."

The spot even caught some Republican leaders of guard. A national GOP consultant tweeted about the ad calling it, "really, really, dumb."

Hoekstra says he's just speaking the truth, capturing the frustration of everyday Americans. He still needs to win the Republican nomination to challenge Stabenow in the general election.