It’s hard not to assign Perdue and Loeffler’s troubles at least partially to Trump. He was the weak link for Republicans running statewide in Georgia this past year. He lost by 0.2 points and his margin was more than a point worse than the Republican candidates in both Senate races.

More bluntly, Trump is the only Republican to lose a statewide race in Georgia in more than a decade.

In theory, Perdue and Loeffler do not want this race to become about Trump. Trump, however, has helped to accomplish the opposite of that.

He has very much stayed in the news in Georgia. He has attacked Georgia’s November election as fraudulent without any proof and gone after the Republican governor and secretary of state. He elevated the issue of $2,000 stimulus checks and has allowed Ossoff and Warnock to point out that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has made it hard for such a stimulus to pass through the Senate. (The stimulus is popular.)

Trump is reminding the few but very important split ticket voters in Georgia that Perdue and Loeffler are part of Trump’s Republican Party.