California Republican gubernatorial candidate Steve Hilton has a problem.
He's losing.
Badly.
And with Election Day approaching, his campaign's solution appears to be getting increasingly strange.
Hilton's latest attempt to persuade Californians to vote Republican is a sexually suggestive campaign video called “Just Try It, California,” featuring two young women in a bedroom and a practice ballot.
Yes, really.
The premise is essentially that voting Republican is something California voters might secretly enjoy if they could overcome their reluctance and just try it once.
Hilton says the ad is intentionally provocative and humorous.
It certainly succeeded at getting attention.
Whether it will persuade many voters to support him is another question entirely.
The Polls Explain the Desperation
Hilton is running against Democrat Xavier Becerra to replace term-limited Gov. Gavin Newsom.
Recent polling suggests Hilton has an enormous amount of ground to make up.
A UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies poll conducted for the Los Angeles Times found Becerra leading Hilton 58% to 33% among likely voters.
That's a 25-point difference.
Other recent surveys have also shown Becerra with substantial leads.
Hilton himself acknowledges that he is the underdog.
California hasn't elected a Republican to statewide office in two decades, and Democratic voters substantially outnumber Republicans.
That doesn't make a Republican victory mathematically impossible.
But it does explain why Hilton's campaign appears increasingly interested in attracting attention any way it can.
Which brings us back to the bedroom.
“Just Try It”
The ad begins with two young women, one with pink hair and another with blue hair.
They're in a bedroom.
The imagery is intentionally suggestive.
But what they're supposedly experimenting with isn't sex.
It's voting Republican.
The joke culminates with the idea that one of the women should “just try” voting for Hilton.
The campaign apparently believes the video will reach younger Californians who might otherwise dismiss a Republican candidate without considering him.
Hilton defended the approach.
“We're just saying, you know, just try it,” he told the Los Angeles Times.
He described the ad as a provocative and humorous way of communicating his message.
There is certainly nothing inherently wrong with political campaigns attempting humor.
There is also nothing new about candidates using unconventional advertising to attract voters who ordinarily ignore them.
But Hilton's ad has managed the impressive feat of irritating people across the political spectrum.
Some Democrats have mocked it.
Some conservatives have condemned it.
And Wonkette responded with an entire satirical article imagining the ad as a lesbian political awakening.
When your campaign advertisement inspires people to debate whether it's political outreach, soft-core parody or AI-generated satire, you have at least succeeded in getting noticed.
Republicans Are Afraid of Everything
There is a larger irony surrounding Hilton's attempt to look edgy and unconventional.
Much of modern Republican political messaging is built around fear.
Be afraid of immigrants.
Be afraid of crime.
Be afraid of transgender people.
Be afraid of teachers.
Be afraid of universities.
Be afraid of “woke” corporations.
Be afraid of cities.
Be afraid of election fraud.
Be afraid of government.
Be afraid of vaccines.
Be afraid of books in school libraries.
Be afraid of whatever Democrats are supposedly going to do next.
Obviously, not every Republican voter believes all of those things, and Republican candidates differ substantially in how they campaign.
But fear has become an unmistakable feature of a great deal of Republican political advertising.
The formula is familiar.
Find something voters don't completely understand.
Portray it as threatening.
Then promise to protect them from it.
Hilton himself has leaned heavily into warnings about crime, immigration, homelessness and California's Democratic political establishment.
Some of those subjects involve legitimate problems.
California's housing costs are extraordinarily high.
Homelessness remains a serious problem.
Utility rates, gasoline prices and taxes affect millions of families.
Those issues deserve serious debate.
But political campaigns often discover that frightening voters is easier than explaining complicated policy.
And Now Republicans Are Afraid of Hilton's Ad
That's what makes the reaction to “Just Try It, California” especially funny.
Even some people on Hilton's own side are horrified by it.
Conservative critics have described the sexually suggestive ad as inappropriate and grotesque.
Hilton argues there is no contradiction between the advertisement and his conservative positions on issues involving gender and children because the women portrayed in the video are adults.
But the controversy illustrates the problem Hilton faces.
He's trying to convince Californians that he isn't the Republican they imagine when they hear the word “Republican.”
At the same time, he needs Republican voters who very much want him to be that Republican.
Those two objectives don't always coexist comfortably.
California Isn't Buying What Republicans Are Selling
Hilton's larger difficulty has little to do with one weird advertisement.
It's California.
Republicans haven't won statewide office here since 2006.
That doesn't mean Californians are satisfied with everything Democrats have done.
Far from it.
Polls consistently show frustration over the cost of living, housing affordability, homelessness and other major state problems.
Hilton's campaign argues that 16 years of Democratic governors and Democratic dominance in Sacramento should make voters willing to try something different.
That's a legitimate political argument.
The problem for Hilton is that voters can dislike California's problems without concluding that electing a Republican governor is the solution.
And so far, polling indicates that most aren't making that leap.
Trump Isn't Helping
Hilton also carries another political burden.
Donald Trump endorsed him.
That might help Hilton consolidate Republican voters.
It is considerably less useful when trying to persuade the rest of California.
Recent polling has shown Trump deeply unpopular among the state's registered voters.
Becerra understands this perfectly.
During this week's gubernatorial debate, he repeatedly connected Hilton to Trump.
Hilton responded by trying to make the election a referendum on Democratic control of Sacramento.
That's essentially the entire race.
Becerra wants Californians thinking about Trump.
Hilton wants them thinking about California.
The polling currently suggests Becerra's argument is working better.
When You're Down 25 Points, Try Something
There is something almost refreshingly transparent about Hilton's advertisement.
The campaign knows the normal Republican playbook isn't enough.
A conventional commercial about taxes isn't going to erase a 25-point polling deficit.
Another commercial about homelessness probably won't either.
So why not two young women in a bedroom flirting over a ballot?
At least people are talking about it.
And Hilton deserves some credit for being willing to produce something political consultants normally wouldn't allow within 500 feet of a campaign.
But viral attention and electoral support are not the same thing.
Millions of people can watch an advertisement because they think it's hilarious, bizarre or terrible without deciding to vote for the candidate who made it.
That is Hilton's real challenge.
He doesn't need Californians to watch him.
He needs millions of Californians who currently prefer Xavier Becerra to change their minds.
Fear Isn't Much of a Governing Philosophy
California has plenty of genuine problems.
The state is expensive.
Housing is unaffordable for many families.
Homelessness remains visible throughout major cities.
Businesses complain about regulation.
Residents complain about taxes.
Those are serious issues deserving serious proposals from both candidates.
But campaigns built primarily around convincing voters to fear the other side eventually encounter a problem.
You still have to explain what you're going to do.
Hilton's campaign says it wants lower taxes, lower utility bills, cheaper gasoline and major changes to state government.
Those proposals deserve examination.
So do Becerra's.
Instead, we're talking about two women in a bedroom experimenting with Republicanism.
Maybe that's the point.
Hilton needs Californians to do something they haven't done in 20 years: elect a Republican statewide.
His campaign's latest pitch amounts to:
Come on.
Don't be scared.
Just try it.
Which is pretty funny coming from a political movement that spends so much of its time telling everyone what they should be afraid of.
Source: Los Angeles Times, Associated Press, UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies and Wonkette.