When Montana Gov. Steve Bullock launched his Senate campaign this week, he became the second 2020 presidential hopeful to run for Congress instead. One question facing both Bullock and former Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper is whether their failed White House runs could haunt their Senate campaigns or help them — or both.

National campaigns come with higher profiles and larger donor lists. But as Bullock and Hickenlooper ran for the White House, both Democrats also repeatedly said they did not want to run for Senate, only to reverse course after their national ambitions came up short.

Republicans are ready to use statements made on the presidential campaign trail against them. Still, national Democrats view both candidates as their best chances for ousting freshman Republican Sens. Cory Gardner in Colorado and Steve Daines in Montana. Democrats need a net gain of three or four seats to flip the chamber, depending on which party wins the White House, since the vice president casts a tie-breaking vote in the Senate.

There is precedent for a presidential hopeful to disparage life in the Senate, only to turn around and run for a seat in the chamber that same election cycle. Just ask Florida Republican Marco Rubio. He decided at the last minute to run for reelection to the Senate after ending his 2016 presidential run, and won.

“Obviously voters in Florida did not hold Rubio’s presidential ambitions against him when he ran for reelection in the Senate,” said Alex Conant, who worked on Rubio's presidential and Senate campaigns in 2016. “It was something, obviously, that the Democrats really tried to push. But I think voters assume all politicians are ambitious and don’t necessarily fault them for it.”