Underneath all of the campaigns are fundraising machines.

If you’re tired of political messaging, you are not alone. That’s why political messaging that is also entertaining stands apart. Steve Hilton, the Republican candidate for governor of California, made waves this week – obviously what a political ad is supposed to do – with a suggestive, queer TV commercial in which one woman confidently grabs another woman’s hand off camera.

“I’ve just never done anything like this before – like what if my dad finds out?” says the one, nervously. Then: “I think I liked it.” The camera pans down to show the bed they are seated on, and where she has filled in a ballot bubble for Hilton.

There was fast and furious media attention about the ad, which is heavy on sexual innuendo. It was dismissed by fellow Republicans as “weird” and “creepy” and “disturbing.” (Yep, it’s 2026 and low-key lesbian energy is still radioactive.)

I thought it was a clever ad, and demonstrative of something bigger – the way our politics has become so tribal, and that the focus is perhaps less on policies than it is on whether a voter can depart from their tribe. Hilton’s ad seems intended to encourage young voters and queer voters that it’s OK to break away from the Democratic Party.

From Jan. 1-Sept. 19 this year, Hilton’s campaign raised $21.3 million to tell that story, not that far behind Democrat Xavier Becerra’s $29.7 million.

These are huge sums, and every election cycle I read the advertising closely that comes to me, curious to see what message campaigns are trying to promote. And I think about what else we could do with that money – in the case of this governor’s race, $51 million and counting.

The sums are smaller in local elections, but for the population they are trying to reach, campaign spending is quite eye-popping. Staff Writer Celia Jiménez reports this week (see story, p. 12) on the wide fundraising disparity in Salinas for and against Measure H, which would repeal rent stabilization and three other renter-protection ordinances. The yes side, backed by property owners and managers, has raised $729,228, compared to the tenants’ rights side with $79,933 – enough combined to buy a very nice house for somebody, even in this market.

There are also elections where cash has been slow to flow, making wide disparities shocking. In the one contested race for a spot on the board of Salinas Valley Health, incumbent Catherine Carson reports no fundraising this year. Challenger James Dacus had raised nothing until a couple of weeks ago, and in just two weeks since Sept. 24, reports raising at least $35,500. (To stick with my Measure H metaphor, imagine paying down someone’s medical debt with that sum.)

This money gives candidates a megaphone, helping them buy visibility. One thing I love about local politics is that you as a constituent can meet the candidates face-to-face – they may knock on your door, or you can attend a forum. If they come knocking and you aren’t at home, it takes money to leave behind a door-hanger with a few bullet points.

Of course, campaigns may use their money to reach whatever audience they want and share whatever message they want (see above for Steve Hilton’s suggestive lesbian commercial). But who is doing the funding tells its own story about their values. As U.S. Rep. Jimmy Panetta, D-Carmel Valley, recently told me: “Donors who give to my campaign buy into the values of California’s 19th Congressional District, I don’t buy into theirs.”

Following that logic, you can often see two sets of values forming around local candidates, one right-leaning and one left-leaning (the latter a more recent phenomenon, thanks to serious organizing and fundraising efforts). Progress Monterey County, a left-leaning PAC, has spent $32,000 year-to-date, recently contributing to the campaigns of Kim Barber, Alec Manas and Tyller Williamson in Monterey, Annalisa Mitchell and Lacey Raak in Seaside, and Daniel Muñoz, Cary Swensen and Andrew Sandoval in Salinas. The right-leaning Salinas Valley Leadership Group has spent $36,000 on a competing set of candidates, including Margaret D’Arrigo, Irma Lopez and Dennis Donohue in Salinas.

Of course whatever they spend and whatever tribe they think you are in or not, it’s up to the voters on Nov. 3.

SARA RUBIN is the Weekly’s editor. Reach her at sara@montereycountynow.com.