While the political ad that began airing this week in Colorado from the National Republican Senatorial Committee might look fresh, its message should be familiar to voters.

As a concerned sounding narrator enumerates a litany of woes — from inflation and persistent supply chain problems to crime and the threat of a recession — a photo of Sen. Michael Bennet morphs almost imperceptibly over the ad’s 30 seconds into an identically posed photo of President Joe Biden.

“With Biden in the DC politicians in charge, gas prices more than doubled. Sen. Bennett votes 98% with Biden. He just goes along,” the ad says as Bennet appears on screen, adding, “With an economic recession looming, empty shelves, crime in our streets, Sen. Bennet fades away and just goes along.”

By the time the narrator reads the ad’s disclaimer and asks for a donation, Biden has replaced Bennet on screen. If the gist of the ad rings a bell, that’s because it’s almost identical to attacks mounted against the last two senators denied reelection by Colorado voters. In ads and on the campaign trail, opponents charged in 2020 that then-sen. Cory Gardner voted 98% of the time with fellow Republican Donald Trump, and in 2014 that thensen. Mark Udall voted 99% of the time with his fellow Democrat Barack Obama, when the incumbent lawmakers were on the ballot and the former presidents were in office. Gardner’s opponents hung the 98% figure like an albatross around the Republican’s neck throughout his campaign two years ago, bolstered by Trump’s embrace of Gardner at one of the last rallies he held before the COVID-19 pandemic shut the country down in the spring of 2020. “He’s been with us 100%. There was no waver. There was no waver with Cory,” Trump said as a boisterous crowd cheered inside a packed Broadmoor World Arena in Colorado Springs, in a moment replayed endlessly in Democrats’ ads.

Former Rep. Mike Coffman faced a similar mantra in 2018, when his critics pointed out that the Aurora Republican voted 96% of the time with Trump, despite Coffman’s insistence that he would stand up to the president when he disagreed with Trump.

Gardner, Udall and Coffman all lost their bids for another term.

Contrary to that recent history, however, there are signs the attempt to saddle Bennet with the unpopular Biden might not pack the same punch.

The NRSC is spending a modest $240,000 to run the ad for a week on basic cable channels. It’s the first general election ad aimed at Bennet, who is spending five times as much — $1.2 million — to air a month’s worth of ads saying he’s taking on Washington’s political culture and fighting for Colorado’s public lands.

While he’s been sounding the same notes as the NRSC ad since getting in the race last fall, Bennet’s Republican challenger, first-time candidate Joe O’dea, has yet to hit the airwaves after surviving an expensive primary in late June against a Trump-aligned opponent.

Earlier last week, the NRSC announced it was debuting the ad and a companion version with he same message featuring Democratic Sen. Patty Murray in Washington.

“From the beginning of the cycle, the NRSC has been committed to expanding the map, and we’re doing just that,” NRSC Chairman Rick Scott, the junior senator from Florida, said in a statement.

Bennet campaign spokeswoman Georgina Beven disputed the ad’s message and took a swipe at O’dea in an email to Colorado Politics.

“Michael stands up to his party when it’s right for Colorado,” she wrote. “That’s why his latest campaign ad highlights his work of reaching across the aisle and protecting Colorado’s public lands. Meanwhile, Mitch Mcconnell’s NRSC is propping up Joe O’dea with a negative ad that misleads voters. This tells Coloradans everything they need to know: Joe O’dea sides with Mitch Mcconnell, not Colorado.”

To hear Colorado’s Senate candidates tell it — incumbents and challengers alike — there’s nothing the state’s voters value in their DC denizens more than independence, usually expressed as a determination to “stand up for Colorado.”

In the ultra-polarized atmosphere of Washington these days, that’s usually exhibited in ways other than voting against the administration, if the lawmaker in question happens to share party affiliation with the occupant of the White House.

While Biden’s underwater approval ratings in Colorado are similar to the disdain state voters had for Trump, the two president’s positions with the state’s electorate were different. Trump lost Colorado twice, by around 5 points in 2016 and by about 13 points in 2020, when Biden carried the state by the largest margin in more than 30 years.

There are other signs that the timeworn tactic of tying an incumbent to an unpopular president from the same party could finally be losing its sting.

Pundits and strategists suggest that’s what could be happening in states across the country with close Senate races, including in states consistently ranked as more competitive than Colorado — Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Ohio. Pollsters are detecting a disjunction between Biden’s downward trajectory and voter opinion of Democratic candidates.

As noted by Jacob Rubashkin, a reporter and analyst with Inside Elections, Democratic senators in vulnerable seats, including Bennet, all have positive net approval scores at the same time Biden’s approval in their states is underwater, according to exhaustive polling by Morning Consult.

In Colorado, that means Bennet has a 16-point net approval, with 46% of voters viewing him favorably and 30% viewing him unfavorably, even as Biden’s net approval among the state’s voters has slid 6 points into negative territory. The 22-point difference between Bennet’s net approval and Biden’s is among the widest spreads in six states highlighted by Rubashkin.

One factor is that Biden’s low approval numbers include plenty of Democrats disappointed in the president’s inability to deliver on some of the high expectations set by Washington Democrats, with a 50-50 Senate hamstrung by the filibuster. The recent flurry of activity in D.C., however, could turn that narrative on its head. From bipartisan gun control legislation and a package meant to spur American technology to the sweeping reconciliation package unveiled last week, with provisions to lower prescription drug costs, make big advances on climate and take a bite out of the deficit, the Biden White House has notched some unexpected wins.

The Democrats giving thumbs down to the Biden administration don’t appear to be poised to vote Republican.

The bigger risk for Bennet and other Democrats is that those voters will stay home in the fall, possibly in higher numbers than has been typical in modern midterms, when voter turnout dives compared to presidential election years.

But events next door this week in Kansas suggest otherwise. Reacting to June’s Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, Kansas voters turned out heavily to defeat a measure to restrict abortion rights, sending Republicans reeling in a new political landscape.

A Democratic strategist described the disconnect between Biden’s sinking approval and the party’s prospects in November.

“What I’m seeing in the data and hearing from voters on the ground suggests that Biden is taking the fall for high inflation and stock market volatility while a majority of Coloradans still align with Democrats on the issues,” the strategist told Colorado Politics.

Rather than the typical midterm referendum on the party in power, this election is shaping up to be a choice between two approaches to government, with the Trump alternative still fresh in voters’ minds, the strategist said.

Republicans, of course, are hoping voters will frame the election the other way.