Cristóbal Alex is president of Latino Victory Fund.

A week before Virginia voters went to the polls, Latino Victory Fund, of which I am the president, released "American Nightmare," a television ad highlighting how Republican gubernatorial nominee Ed Gillespie's use of harmful stereotypes and defense of racist symbols hurt communities of color. The spot attracted plenty of criticism not only from conservatives but also from the mainstream media.

We understand the backlash. Never had a Latino organization been so aggressive in its defense of our community. When facing vicious, racist attacks, we usually turn the other cheek or point our finger at the bully. This time we threw a jab to the throat. And we will continue to stand up to these attacks in the future.

After months of failing to gain momentum as a Romney Republican, Gillespie decided to borrow the Trumpian tactics of his primary challenger, Corey A. Stewart. This new plan involved maligning Latino immigrants, demonizing the formerly incarcerated and defending racist symbols.

In September, he released his first ad linking "sanctuary city" policies, which allow undocumented victims and witnesses to report crimes to police, to the MS-13 street gang. Gillespie claimed that the Democratic nominee, Ralph Northam, had "increas[ed] the threat of MS-13" by voting against banning sanctuary cities, even though there isn't a single sanctuary city in the commonwealth. The images used in the ad were taken not in Virginia but a few thousand miles away in a Salvadoran jail. Yet Gillespie continued to air his xenophobic spots, trying to deceive Virginians into believing gang members were around every corner, ready to "kill, rape, control."

Gillespie also appealed to voters' worst instincts with ads defending the same Confederate monuments whose removal incited racial violence on the streets of Charlottesville. The message was simple: He was for keeping racist symbols up, and Northam was for taking them down.

Our communities had been slandered, insulted and attacked for far too long, and we could not remain silent. It was our moral imperative to raise awareness about Gillespie's tactics and help increase Latino turnout against bigotry in a tight race.

Latino Victory Fund's 60-second ad depicted a white man in a pickup truck with a Confederate flag and a Gillespie bumper sticker chasing a group of minority children. We wanted to send the message that, by borrowing the lexicon of white supremacists and refusing to disavow racist symbols, Gillespie made his campaign a haven for hate. Furthermore, the powerful ad portrayed the stress and worry haunting immigrant families in an increasingly hostile political and social environment.

Our ad elicited strong reactions on the left and right. Advocacy organizations and other liberal groups praised our ad, saying it reflected the fear of their communities under the Trump administration. The far right exploded in anger. White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said we were "stoking political racism" while Rush Limbaugh mobilized his listeners to call our office. Gillespie and the Virginia GOP responded with crocodile tears. Some conservatives expressed personal offense that we were calling Gillespie's campaign racist. Not one condemned or questioned Gillespie's tactics.

But the criticisms from the mainstream media stung. The Post's editorial board called the ad "vile," arguing that just because Gillespie used controversial tactics, it didn't give others license to do the same. But we never intended to paint all Gillespie voters as racist; rather, we set out to show that the candidate had embraced the underbelly of the Republican Party and how that embrace endangered our communities.

The editorial board also rightly noted that Gillespie had been tougher on the white supremacists who marched on Charlottesville than President Trump had. That's true, but it's also true that Gillespie did not criticize the president's assertion that there were "very fine people" on "both sides." Then Gillespie turned around and threw his full support behind statues rooted in the pain of millions of American citizens, and he continued to paint immigrants as criminals.

The message behind our ad was undeniably effective. An election-eve poll by Latino Decisions found that once white voters saw ads or discussions of Gillespie as anti-immigrant, half became less enthusiastic about Gillespie. That preference was similar among Latino voters. Unsurprisingly, Republican voters turned out for their candidate.

There's a lot to be learned from our experience — about how far we've come as a country and the work that still lies ahead. There are things we could have done differently, better. But it has also reaffirmed that we can't pull punches when it comes to fighting hate. If other Republicans seek to replicate Gillespie's approach, don't expect us to sit on the sidelines.