How the Trump verdict is playing down the ballot: From the Politics Desk

Welcome to the online version of From the Politics Desk, an evening newsletter that brings you the NBC News Politics team’s latest reporting and analysis from the campaign trail, the White House and Capitol Hill.

In today’s edition, national political reporters Bridget Bowman and Henry J. Gomez explore how Senate candidates in key races are responding to Donald Trump's guilty verdict. Plus, senior political editor Mark Murray breaks down what we can and can't learn from the early polls following Trump's conviction.

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Hush money verdict tests Senate candidates’ approach to Trump

By Bridget Bowman and Henry J. Gomez

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

Republican candidates across Senate battlegrounds rallied around Trump after a Manhattan 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 critical races.

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At least two Republican Senate candidates began running new ads Monday looking to further leverage the verdict.

In Montana, Republican Tim Sheehy released a new spot saying his likely opponent in the Senate