Driving along I-90 in Kittitas County last week I noticed presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump is well represented in political signs along the freeway. His banners have the blunt branding the real estate mogul uses in his commercial ventures: big letters announcing “Trump,” visible at highway speed.

There are also some signs for GOP gubernatorial hopeful Bill Bryant. His are less effective: In addition to his name they feature a graphic of Mt. Rainier that, from the car, looks a little like a peak-roofed house. If you don’t know who Bill Bryant is—and most people don’t yet—you’d probably think he sells real estate. And while some of his signs are juxtaposed near Trump signs, Bryant has been careful to keep his distance otherwise.

Bryant is a moderate Republican who casts himself in the Dan Evans mold. His big issues are management and education—both very on-point for a state struggling with both. He will likely head the Republican statewide ticket seeking to knock-off Democratic Gov. Jay Inslee. As columnists like Joel Connelly and Joni Balter have noted, Bryant is avoiding answering the question of whether he supports Trump or not. Democrats in Washington are quite successful at boosting turnout in presidential election years by nationalizing state races—homophobia, racism, the Iraq war—these issues and others have effectively reminded progressives why they should turn out, even in races for, say, state auditor or lands commissioner that focus on other things.

Trump’s comments about race haves ratcheted up the stakes. Even Mitt Romney has warned about the “trickle down racism” Trump represents. That’s trickle Bryant won’t want to be tainted with, especially if he expects, as he does, to do better with swing voters than Rob McKenna in suburban Puget Sound.

I argued earlier this year that Trump would be Jay Inslee’s best running mate: he will help unite Democrats nationally, he will also bump up turnout in a Blue state that could help bolster the incumbent. Some state Republican candidates have already distanced themselves from Trump, most notably Chris Vance, another mainstream Republican, former party chair and pundit who is running for Patty Murray’s senate seat. He has said he will not support a presidential ticket with Trump, and while that might win him points with some independent voters, he’s gotten the cold shoulder from conservative Republicans who follow the “my party right or wrong” line. But the move has helped Vance get some notice for his long-shot campaign.

Vance’s stance is admirable in that he’s taking one. Bryant’s is a political dodge, but I doubt that it’s sustainable. Pressure will increase for him to take a stand, especially if Trump continues to stay his provocative course. Voters will want to know—Trump will want to know—where Bryant stands.

Voters know that national and local issues aren’t as different as they seem. Republican Dino Rossi ran for governor twice and nearly won once, and he insisted, for example, that his pro-life views shouldn’t be a local issue since legal abortion was a settled issue nationally and locally. But we’ve seen a wave of efforts, some very successful, to roll back abortion rights state by state. So whether Rossi was pro-life or pro-choice did matter. Whatever side you’re on, it is important who the governor is. The national often becomes local.

There is some precedent for state politicians bucking party when it comes to supporting the candidate at the top. Dan Evans has lambasted the whole GOP presidential campaign process and described the GOP debates as a “monster.” In a recent Seattle Times op/ed he wrote, “I listened with astonishment and dismay as the debates descended to who sweats the most or who had the largest penis. Schoolyard taunts drowned out any serious discussion of issues.” Trump raises issue not only in terms of issues, but of the integrity of the process itself.

Evans distanced himself from the national ticket during his first run for governor in 1964 by arranging not to be photographed with ultra-conservative presidential candidate Barry Goldwater at a campaign stop in the state (in one appearance he is said to have hidden behind a farmer). That tactic might have helped him win despite the Democratic-Lyndon Johnson landslide that year. Bryant might be taking a play out of that book, but in the age of social media, such tactics aren’t as likely to work—everyone’s got a camera. And as Bryant commented to Joel Connelly, ignoring the Trump question “is not easy.”

On the other hand, Evans-era state attorney general Slade Gorton became the first major elected Republican in the state to ask for Richard Nixon’s resignation during Watergate in 1974, a bold break with his party establishment. It wasn’t an election year for Gorton, but he did get re-elected in 1976 and the move cast him with a statesman-like glow that helped him get elected to the U.S. Senate in 1980 over a longtime, popular Democratic incumbent. Many found Gorton’s willingness to risk political career for principle refreshing.

That’s another playbook for Bryant to consider.