SPRINGFIELD — Republican candidate for governor Jeanne Ives says her contentious campaign ad against Gov. Bruce Rauner is an “accurate representation” of policies her rival has endorsed.

The state representative from Wheaton addressed the City Club of Chicago Monday. She agreed that the ad featuring actors playing a transgender woman, an immigrant and a woman who’s had a publicly financed abortion is “edgy.”

But the three-term lawmaker says it shows “what the policies look like on the ground.”

She’s attacking the first-term governor for signing laws allowing transgender residents to change their birth certificates, allowing Medicaid- and state-insurance-covered abortions and limiting law enforcement officers’ interaction with immigrants.

Confronted about the ad at a campaign event Monday, Ives doubled down, saying, “that’s typically what a transgender man looks like,” adding that she was, “a little surprised” by the overwhelming condemnation.

“What’s so offensive about the ad?” Ives asks, calling it an accurate “visual representation” of the policies Rauner put in place. “The transgender man, that’s typically what a transgender man looks like.” Man in audience says “no it’s not” She says yes, they’ve showed at my door

— Amanda Vinicky (@AmandaVinicky) February 5, 2018

The Republican party chairman urged her to remove the ad. Rauner says it shows how “unelectable” Ives is.

That didn’t stop the Ives campaign from firmly standing behind the ad over the weekend. “In an age of ambiguity in politics, it’s a clear, unambiguous message about what Rauner stands for,” Republican state central committee member John McGlasson said in a statement released by the Ives campaign. “Everything in the video is correct.”

The primary election is March 20. Ives is scheduled to make two appearances in Rockford on Monday evening.

–Associated Press, with Staff reports