Written by 
Some of the most vulnerable Democratic senators in this election are using the closing stretch to boast about their ties to former President Trump.
Why it matters: Even candidates in presidential battlegrounds are now featuring Trump cameos in campaign ads — as Democrats up and down the ballot run to the middle.
- The trend comes as split-ticket voting declines, making it more likely that a Senate candidate’s fate will be tied to their state’s presidential results.
- It’s a sign of just how close Rust Belt races could be this year.
Driving the news: Sens. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wisc.) and Bob Casey (D-Penn.) both released ads on Friday that include images of Trump — and not to bash him, according to an Axios analysis of ads in AdImpact.
- “Casey bucked Biden to protect fracking and he sided with Trump to end NAFTA and put tariffs on China to stop them from cheating,” the Casey campaign ad states.
- “Tammy Baldwin got President Trump to sign her Made in America bill,” says the narrator in Baldwin’s ad.
- Rep. Elissa Slotkin’s (D-Mich.) campaign for Senate also spent more than a $1 million starting mid-August on an ad saying she “wrote a law signed by President Trump forcing drug companies to show their actual prices,” according to AdImpact.
Zoom out: They aren’t the first Democrats to draw connections with Trump.
Sens. Jon Tester (D-Mont.) and Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) are viewed as the most vulnerable senators this year, running in states that will almost certainly vote for Trump.
- Both have made concerted efforts to distance themselves from the Biden administration on key issues and present themselves as moderate voices in their party.
- Tester ads have featured Montanans who say they are “lifelong Republicans” or plan to vote for Trump, but back Tester for Senate.
- An ad from earlier this year boasts that Brown “wrote a bill that Donald Trump signed to crack down on drugs at the border.”
What they’re saying: “These Senate Democrats all voted to impeach President Trump twice, so it is surprising that they are now running ads praising his work as President,” NRSC communications director Mike Berg told Axios in a statement.
- The Democratic Senate campaign arm did not return a request for comment.