MIAMI BEACH — Wearing a black suit and tie with neon-pink laces on his kicks, the man in the video struggles up Ocean Drive, past the Art Deco hotels and the hangovers they house. He pulls a trolley freighted with two voting machines — the ones that hung those chads long ago and made election infamy.

“Easy come, easy go, time for me to say hello,” he sings soulfully into the camera in a parody of Bruno Mars’s video “Grenade.” “My name is Steve Berke, and I am running to be mayor, yo. Is he real? Do you know? Is he one big joke? I can promise you it’s real.”

Steve Berke is for real. And the 30-year-old comedian’s quixotic race for Miami Beach mayor — with its YouTube parody videos, sultry fashion models, publicity stunts and pro-marijuana platform — has morphed into a serious bid, with serious money and a serious political consultant.

Call it a Jon Stewart-generation campaign by a candidate weaned on “The Daily Show” and hoping to use raw humor to reach new, disenfranchised voters through social media. On his campaign fliers, Mr. Berke poses with a fluffy housecat borrowed from a friend “because I don’t have a wife and children.” His campaign’s robo-calls use voice impersonators posing as President Obama, Bill Clinton and, “for the Jewish vote,” Adam Sandler. He has cameras recording his every step (and misstep) so he can pitch the whole thing as a reality show. He highlights his politically lethal gaffes because another part of his platform is unwavering transparency.