Donald Trump is playing a starring role in at least five of the most hotly contested races for the California Assembly and Senate.

California Democrats in those races are using a strategy their party has employed in congressional and other contests across the country - spending millions of dollars to link Republican candidates to their party's nominee for president, even in races where GOP lawmakers have refused to back Trump.

"Marc Steinorth and Donald Trump. Two sides of the same coin," says a mail ad targeting an incumbent Republican lawmaker in San Bernardino County.

"What's the difference between Dante Acosta and Donald Trump?" asks the narrator of a television ad for an Assembly race in the Santa Clarita Valley. "Nothing. Two candidates, same resume."

Trump is extraordinarily unpopular in California, even for a Republican in the famously liberal state. Nearly seven in 10 California voters view Trump unfavorably, according to a Field Poll conducted last month. More than half said they hold a "very unfavorable" view of him.

Dave Jacobson, a Democratic political consultant working on the campaigns against Steinorth and Acosta, defended the material.
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&quot Trump) is the standard bearer of the Republican Party, and as long as they have that R seared on the ballot next to their name, they are responsible for the banner that their party carries, which is embodied by Donald Trump," Jacobson said. - KCRA