The musical accompaniment was a jab engineered by the National Republican Senatorial Committee, which has also branded the Indiana politician “Mexico Joe.” And for one of the most vulnerable Senate Democrats facing reelection in 2018, this week’s publicity stunt offered a peek at the divisive campaign that’s likely ahead.

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Donnelly faces a political landscape far less inviting than in his last election, where the senator benefited from the implosion of his opponent. In 2012, Republican Richard Mourdock defeated longtime senator Richard G. Lugar in a primary, then appeared primed to knock out Donnelly as well. But Mourdock’s momentum sagged, according to the AP, after the candidate told a crowd that a pregnancy resulting from rape is still “something God intended.”

On Election Day Donnelly won 50 percent of the vote against Mourdock’s 44 percent.

Yet four years later, Indiana turned out big for Donald Trump. The Republican candidate beat Democrat Hillary Clinton by nearly 20 percentage points. The president’s continued popularity with Hoosiers is one of the reasons the Hill has termed Donnelly “among the most vulnerable Senate Democrats” running next year.

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Republicans are also hoping a recent controversy will derail Donnelly’s future chances.

The mariachi attack does not appear to be tied to any position the Democrat has on immigration — at least explicitly. Instead, it goes back to jobs.

The senator had been a longtime opponent of outsourcing jobs overseas, particularly when Carrier, an air conditioner and furnace manufacturer, announced plans to ship over 800 positions out of Indiana.

But last July, the AP reported Donnelly’s family arts and craft business benefited from cheap Mexican labor as well. In the resulting outrage, the senator sold off his interest in the business.

Republicans, however, are not going to let it go, if Monday’s mariachi-themed attack is any indicator.

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“Joe Donnelly can try to make Hoosiers forget about his family business’s outsourcing controversy,” a NRSC spokesman said in a release, “but we’ll make sure it’s the first thing on voters’ minds when they head to the polls in 2018.”

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Indiana Democrats shot back after the mariachi troll.

“Washington Republicans are resorting to cheap publicity stunts to distract from Joe’s stellar record on the issues that matter to Indiana’s economy,” Will Baskin-Gerwitz, a party media strategist, told the Hill. “He’s voted against every single bad trade deal, and he’s consistently stood with Hoosier workers against the flow of jobs to other countries.”