BRIDGEWATER - "Give em hell, Jack," a supporter yelled as the candidate was walking to his car.

Jack Ciattarelli turned and raised his right fist in triumph.

This was noon Friday and Ciattarelli was in a good mood. He had just voted for himself for governor, something most people never get a chance to do.

He also turned his trip to the polls - a rather routine event - into a party of sorts. A few dozen supporters put up signs along the road and cheered mightily as Ciattarelli's SUV arrived outside the township's municipal building.

Inside, he greeted poll workers, signed the book, and was led to a booth. All this while trailed by a half dozen or so TV cameras.

Ciattarelli was taking advantage of early, machine voting and he wants his backers to do the same.

"Don't wait until Tuesday, anything can happen; a family emergency, not feeling well, something at work," he said. "Get out there and vote."

All who pay attention to politics know that Democrats do much better with early voting - especially mail-in voting - than Republicans do.Ciattarelli is trying to change that.

He's said a few times this week that he's happy with how Republicans are voting early.

Still, as of Friday, the early vote in New Jersey - mail-in and machine - was 518,174 from registered Democrats and 283,039 from registered Republicans.

He said an Emerson poll Thursday that showed the race a statistical dead heat is what he sees when traveling the state. For the record, there were two other polls Thursday that showed Mikie Sherrill with leads of 7 points. They were by Fox and Quinnipiac.

Ciattarelli, of course, ran four years ago and lost to Phil Murphy by a bit more than 3 percentage points.

This year, he insists, is different.

He is not running against an incumbent for starters. Also, he says such issues as affordability and over development, which were percolating four years ago, have now come to a full boil.

The mood is also different. He said that in 2021, even Republicans assumed he could not win, Now they know he can.

So with four days left, Ciattarelli plans to continue doing what he's been doing since winning the primary.

That means holding rallies, meeting people and shaking hands with voters.

And that, he said, is something he thinks he's doing "a helluva lot better than my opponent."