Donald Trump‘s guilty verdict in his New York hush money case is turning into one of the first major tests for Senate candidates trying to navigate the tumult of running alongside the polarizing former president.

Republican candidates across Senate battlegrounds rallied around Trump after a New York jury found him guilty last week on all 34 felony counts of falsifying business records, with many criticizing the case as “election interference,” “a sham,” “rigged,” and “political persecution.”

Yet, while Republicans are rushing to embrace Trump, many Democrats want to focus on their own states and other issues instead of making a meal out of the guilty verdict, facing an uncertain political landscape and the knowledge that they’ll need Trump voters to back them, too, in key races.

At least two Republican candidates launched new ads on Monday looking to leverage the verdict even more in their races.

Republican Tim Sheehy launched a new spot saying his likely opponent, Montana Democratic Sen. Jon Tester, “supported Joe Biden’s witch hunt every step of the way.” The ad will air on TV, according to a source familiar with the strategy.

In Ohio, Republican Bernie Moreno launched a digital ad that criticizes Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown for “refusing to condemn Biden’s politically motivated witch hunt.”

It’s no coincidence that Moreno and Sheehy are leaning into the verdict to fire up Trump’s supporters in Ohio and Montana. Both states are among Republicans’ best opportunities to flip Senate seats this year, after the open seat in West Virginia — Trump carried Montana by 16 points and Ohio by 8 points in 2020. The GOP needs a net gain of two seats to take control of the chamber (or one seat if Trump wins the White House, since the vice president casts tie-breaking votes in the Senate).

Tester and Brown had similar, muted responses to last week’s verdict.

“I’m not a lawyer or a judge but I’ve said from the beginning that no one is above the law,” Brown said in a statement. “Ultimately this is up to the legal system to sort out and for the American people to decide in November.”

“Senator Tester respects the judicial process and believes everyone should be treated fairly before the courts, and voters will have the opportunity to make their voices heard at the ballot box in November,” a spokesperson told the Montana Free Press.

Democrats’ Trump tightrope

Republicans were quick to criticize the Democrats’ responses.

“Senate Democrats have a choice: They can spend the next six months defending their party’s attempts to put Donald Trump in prison or they can rescind their endorsements of Joe Biden and call for an end to this unjust political prosecution,” National Republican Senatorial Committee spokesperson Philip Letsou said in a statement to NBC News. “Jon Tester and Sherrod Brown’s attempts to bury their heads in the sand won’t work.”

Democrats’ reactions to the verdict underscore the difficult balancing act facing these candidates: They must turn out as many Democrats as possible, but also win over some Trump voters as their states have shifted to the right. To do so, they’re focusing on local issues and touting their work on bipartisan policies like veteran health care and the opioid epidemic.

“We have a ton of candidates for Senate who would love to essentially make their races about their states, not about partisan antics in Washington, D.C.,” said one Democratic strategist involved in Senate races.

“Anytime Trump pops back up in the news, that obviously gets harder,” the strategist added. “But this was a phenomenon before or after the verdict.”

Other Democratic Senate contenders also issued short statements following the verdict, emphasizing support for the broader justice system.

“I respect our justice system and the rule of law. The process played out, and we should always demand accountability from our elected leaders,” Democratic Rep. Ruben Gallego of Arizona posted on X. Gallego did also fundraise off the verdict, blasting an email Thursday evening to supporters with the subject line, “Don’t let a convicted felon win in Arizona.”

Democratic Sen. Bob Casey of Pennsylvania said in a statement, “The former president had his day in court in front of a jury of citizens, as we all deserve, and this verdict reflects that.”

But Michigan Rep. Elissa Slotkin, a top Senate candidate, went a step further, describing Trump as a “convicted felon,” writing in part on X, “Presidents should be leaders we look up to; now, one of them is a convicted felon, found guilty by a jury of his peers. That’s nothing to celebrate.”

Rich Luchette, a Democratic strategist, suggested that addressing Trump more directly could be a winning strategy.

“Be not afraid. Voters value candidates who tell it like it is,” Luchette said. “Democrats should feel comfortable talking about Donald Trump’s felony convictions and the importance of protecting our democracy, no matter the audience. At the same time, we need to stay focused on the issues that matter most to working men and women: access to health care, protecting abortion, and growing the economy from the bottom up and the middle out.”

But Republican strategist Brad Todd said the verdict was “a missed opportunity” for these Democratic candidates to distance themselves from the national party.

“In the end, Tester and Sherrod Brown and Bob Casey do not win unless they convert some people who are voting for Donald Trump,” Todd said. “And if they were smart, they’d be criticizing this prosecution and saying only the voters should get to rule on Donald Trump in November, not a Manhattan grand jury.”

Embracing Trump

Senate Republican candidates, meanwhile, are largely sticking together. Along with Sheehy and Moreno, GOP candidates in swing states also slammed the verdict.

Former GOP Rep. Mike Rogers, a top Senate candidate in Michigan, said, “It’s been clear that these charges were politically motivated from the beginning, and while thankfully our system of justice doesn’t place all of the power in rabidly partisan district attorneys, this rigged trial and un-American persecution of President Trump is an indelible stain on our nation.”

Republicans have also leveraged the energy around Trump’s verdict to boost their campaign accounts. The NRSC reported its best online fundraising day ever after the verdict was announced last week, saying it raked in $360,000.

Only former Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan, who is running for Senate in his deep-blue state, did not condemn the verdict, posting on X before it was announced, “Regardless of the result, I urge all Americans to respect the verdict and the legal process.”

The perils of such an approach quickly became clear. Trump senior adviser Chris LaCivita responded, “You just ended your campaign.”

Consistently embracing Trump is a marked shift from 2016, when Senate contenders in battlegrounds sought to distance themselves from their controversial standard bearer. In 2024, after eight years of Trump-fueled evolution in the party, Republicans are not shy about tying themselves to Trump and appearing at his rallies in their states.

Some Democrats were skeptical that embracing Trump would boost Republicans, especially after last week’s verdict.

“The outcome of Senate races will be driven by the poor quality and disqualifying flaws of the Republican candidates,” said Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee communications director David Bergstein. “The fact that they’re now running alongside a convicted felon certainly won’t help them.” 

With voters naming other issues like the economy, immigration, democracy and abortion as their top concerns, it’s not clear if Trump’s legal issues will have much of an impact further down the ballot.

The Democratic strategist involved in Senate races was doubtful the verdict would cause a swing voter would change his or her vote for senate. The strategist also noted the fundamental tension in these Senate races remains, as Republicans look to tie Democrats to the presidential ballot, and Democrats try to keep the focus on their states.

“That nationalization has always been the crux of Republican arguments and this trial didn’t change that,” the strategist said.