ALBANY, N.Y. – New York's Conservative Party's ad made it clear: A vote on its line is a vote for President Donald Trump.

"If Trump infuriating his enemies is music to your ears – and you don't mind making the liberals scream yourself – this November stand with President Trump," the ad says.

Meanwhile, Gov. Andrew Cuomo's re-election bid has been more focused on Trump's policies than on those of his Republican opponent, Marc Molinaro.

"This election is not about my opponent," Cuomo said at a rally Monday, "because they are only soldiers in the army. This election is about the general of their army because they are just carrying orders for their general and their general is Donald Trump."

In Trump's home state, Republican candidates have either embraced Trump wholeheartedly or trodden lightly with tepid support, while Democrats have made New York's races a referendum on the polarizing president.

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The result is an engaged electorate on Election Day in a state where turnout has been among the worst in the nation.

In the state's Democratic primary in September, more than 1.5 million voters turned out for the race between Cuomo and challenger Cynthia Nixon, the "Sex and the City" star.

That's more than twice what it was four years ago.

And the interest showed no signs of slowing. The number of absentee ballots sent out to voters ahead of Tuesday's election was double what it was four years ago, and Democratic enrollment soared between April and November.

In 2010, the turnout in the midterm elections and the gubernatorial race was 44 percent of active voters. Four years later, it was a mere 36 percent.

Turnout is "going to be significantly higher than four years ago. The question is does it get to 45 percent? Does it go higher?" said Steven Greenberg, a spokesman for the Siena College Research Institute.

"The other question in that is: Who are those extra people" who come out to vote, Greenberg asked.

Parsing GOP support

In the gubernatorial, congressional and state legislative races, Trump has loomed large.

Molinaro, the Dutchess County executive, has repeatedly said he didn't vote for Trump in 2016 and instead wrote in the name of former Rep. Chris Gibson of the Hudson Valley.

Molinaro knocked Cuomo for trying to make the race about Trump and not Cuomo's own record and the future of the state.

Cuomo "wants this race to be about somebody and something else," Molinaro told the USA TODAY Network's Albany Bureau.

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"He’s not running against me, right? He’s running against Donald Trump," Molinaro said. "He doesn’t want his record judged. He wants us to pay attention to Washington.”

Cuomo, a prospective presidential candidate in 2020, contended that Republicans are all part of the same agenda being pushed by Trump – even though Molinaro said he would judge each of Trump's decisions independently.

Repeatedly in their sole debate, Cuomo pressed Molinaro: "Do you support Donald Trump?"

Molinaro struggled to answer, finally saying, "Let's get out of this conversation."

In ads, Cuomo lumped Molinaro and Trump together.

"Donald Trump is attacking New York rights, our values, and our economy," one ad from Cuomo's campaign said. "And now Trump is running his puppet, Marc Molinaro, for Governor of New York."

The ad ends: "A Trump mini-me for governor? No way, no how."

Cuomo went into the election as a heavy favorite to win a third term, and the latest Siena College poll Sunday showed he was leading Molinaro by 13 percentage points.

Embracing Trump

If Molinaro has been cautious in his stance against Trump it's because New York has twice as many Democrats as Republicans. In 2016, Hillary Clinton beat Trump by 59 percent to 37 percent.

But in congressional races, in particular, Trump has been embraced by some candidates.

Western New York Rep. Chris Collins was the first House member to back Trump's presidency, and now he is hoping his GOP-heavy district will re-elect him even after he was indicted on insider-trading charges.

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In central New York, Rep. Claudia Tenney has campaigned for re-election in the district with Trump and his children. They have all come to help Tenney against Democrat Anthony Brindisi in one of the toughest contests in the nation.

"You guys, that swamp is deep; the swamp is deep, it’s nasty, (Tenney) is incredible – she voted for tax cuts,” Eric Trump, the president's son, said in a recent campaign stop in the district.

Tenney has sought to tie Brindisi, a state assemblyman, to the corruption at the state Capitol and the state's gun-control law, the SAFE Act.

"I've said numerous times I'm not supporting Nancy Pelosi when elected to Congress, but that hasn't stopped my opponent from putting her in commercials with me," Brindisi told The (Binghamton, N.Y.) Press & Sun-Bulletin.

The same themes have played out in other congressional races in New York, including in the 19th district that stretches across 11 counties, and pits GOP Rep. John Faso against Democrat Antonio Delgado.

Faso, for example, voted against Trump's tax plan, but supported some of his reforms to health care – which Delgado seized on.

Trump wrote on Twitter in support of both Faso and Tenney.

Which Trump strategy will pay off?

Whether supporting Trump or running against him is the best strategy will not be known in New York until late Tuesday.

Trump won the 19th Congressional District by 7 percentage points in 2016, but President Barack Obama won it by a similar margin in 2012.

And in the 22nd district held by Tenney, Trump won by 15 percentage points in 2016.

Overall, Trump is seen more negative by New Yorkers than positive, according to the Siena poll Sunday.

He was viewed unfavorably by 58 percent of voters compared to 39 percent who viewed him favorably, the poll said.

That's compared with 49 percent who viewed Cuomo favorably and 45 percent who did not.

“In this era of sharp partisan divide, Democrats and Republicans agree — almost unanimously — on one thing: They want their party to control the House of Representatives and the New York state Senate next year," Greenberg said.

Follow Joseph Spector on Twitter: @GannettAlbany