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The Senate Republican campaign arm this fall urged senators up for re-election next year to keep their distance from Donald J. Trump, calling him a “misguided missile” who could undermine their campaigns.

“Let’s face facts. Trump says what’s on his mind and that’s a problem,” wrote Ward Baker, the executive director of the National Republican Senatorial Committee. “Our candidates will have to spend full time defending him or condemning him if that continues. And, that’s a place we never, ever want to be. It is certain that all G.O.P. candidates will be tied in some way to our nominee, but we need not be tied to him so closely that we have to engage in permanent cleanup or distancing maneuvers.”

In a seven-page memo dated Sept. 22, Mr. Baker wrote Senate Republicans under the assumption that Mr. Trump had secured the presidential nomination. Using stark terms, the strategist warned incumbents whose campaigns will determine whether Republicans hold their majority about the risk of being associated with the bombastic presidential candidate.

“Houston, we have a problem: Donald Trump has said some wacky things about women,” wrote Mr. Baker, invoking the Democrats effort to portray Republicans as insensitive to women. “Candidates shouldn’t go near this ground other than to say that your wife or daughter is offended by what Trump said. We do not want to re-engage the ‘war on women’ fight so isolate Trump on this issue by offering a quick condemnation of it.”

Mr. Baker said Mr. Trump “is subject to farcical fits” and urged candidates to take him to task for “outrageous” statements.

Yet Mr. Baker used the document, the contents of which were first reported by The Washington Post, to also urge the party’s Senate candidates to find ways to tap into the populist energy Mr. Trump is drawing from in the form of large crowds and monthslong strength in polls of Republican primary voters.

“Trump is saying that the Emperor has no clothes and he challenges our politically correct times,” Mr. Baker wrote. “Our candidates shouldn’t miss this point. Don’t insult key voter cohorts by ignoring that America has significant problems and that Trump is offering some basic solutions. Understand the populist points Trump makes and ride that wave.”