Michigan Republican Pete Hoekstra began taking criticism after his ad targeting Democratic incumbent Debbie Stabenow ran statewide Sunday during the Super Bowl.

The ad opens with the sound of a gong and shows the Asian woman riding a bike on a narrow path lined by rice paddies.

Stopping her bike, the woman smiles into the camera and says, “Thank you, Michigan Sen. Debbie Spenditnow. Debbie spends so much American money. You borrow more and more from us. Your economy get very weak. Ours get very good. We take your jobs. Thank you, Debbie Spenditnow.”

The scene shifts to Hoekstra telling viewers, “I think this race is between Debbie Spenditnow and Pete Spenditnot.”

Some critics said the ad was racially insensitive, while national Republican consultant Mike Murphy tweeted that it was “really, really dumb.”

Foreign Policy magazine Managing Editor Blake Hounshell called the ad “despicable.”

Charles Williams II of Detroit’s King Solomon Baptist church, where Malcolm X spoke in the 1960s, joined several other Detroit pastors calling for Hoekstra to pull the ad.

“The Asian woman speaking in this video would be no different than him having a black person speaking in slave dialect,” Williams said in a statement on Monday.

Sen. Hoekstra defended the ad, calling it a “home run” during an interview Monday with Detroit radio WJR-AM.

“Clearly China is one of many countries benefiting from our irresponsible spending.

“To highlight that is absolutely appropriate,” Hoekstra said. The ad doesn’t mention China directly.

A barrage of criticism hit Hoekstra’s Facebook page early Sunday evening, but most of the negative comments were deleted by Monday morning.

On Facebook, Hoekstra said those “trying to make this an issue of race demonstrates their total ignorance of job creation policies.”

The nonpartisan Asian & Pacific Islander American Vote group’s Michigan chapter said it was “deeply disappointed” by the ad.

“It is very disturbing that Mr. Hoekstra’s campaign chose to use harmful negative stereotypes that intrinsically encourage anti-Asian sentiment,” the group said in a statement.

Stabenow, the two-term senator Hoekstra hopes to challenge, has not responded directly to the ad.