The contest for governor was on, with a kind of vengeance. It felt as if the bus had suddenly gone into overdrive, throwing everyone in both parties back on their heels, where pawing at the turf became the only option to remain upright and in a reverse offensive position. Insiders in both parties started buttonholing InsiderNJ with a more fervent edge.

Excitement prevailed. People liked the showdown, the candidates, and the problems. It was like watching the Jets' first game of the season and realizing a team had actually taken the field.

Politics, in fact, still existed.

It was still fun.

It wasn't yet a total mediocrity tyranny.

People - both Republicans and Democrats - acknowledged Jack Ciattarelli's strengths as a communicator and as a campaigner. He's everywhere. Can't keep up with him. McGreeveyized himself. But, of course, he has an albatross in the White House around his neck weighing him down and making it difficult to maintain a sharp, independent identity. Every time he opens his mouth to express an articulate idea, the drone of Trump intrudes horrifically.

Not quite, but almost.

Mikie Sherrill?

Well, the party - Democrats - were seen as weak and ineffectual, a leadership collective of the kinds of individuals last picked for the childhood games of pickup basketball, still nursing buried hurts perhaps now best advanced in the softly warlike world of aggrieved politics, but otherwise disconnected from reality. They had had four years in Drumthwacket. Lost a senior senator in mortifying fashion. They had tried to front a president for reelection who lacked fitness for office. And they had just come out of an acrimonious, line-less primary and everyone wanted something, within a political superstructure probably too corroded and self-protective to give anything.

Maybe not exactly - but more than sort of.

The candidate herself offered an all-but-forgotten facet, which the establishment seemed slow to process.

"She doesn't get the joke," one wiseacre told InsiderNJ.

What he meant was: she apparently believes in public service and has a record to show for it. Sherrill served as a Navy helicopter pilot while a lot of the so-called poohbahs of the party were pulling off the heroic exercise of scrambling to get coffee for a political boss.

So, she had work to do on the political side, on the coordinated campaign side, as a congresswoman who flipped a suburban red district with a mission critical mindset, and now must confront the scaffolding of a somewhat static party long built on urban power-brokering and complacency.

Ciattarelli had his own party troubles, in addition to Trump.

The guy he beat up in the GOP Primary was wounded, sitting on an endorsement. Sitting on his hands. And vocal - as a radio personality.

Roaring out of the gate last week, he jolted into bad weather Monday when Sherrill zapped the Republican nominee over his Tennessee sales tax remark. He would need to reclaim the offense.

As the ad war kicked in and the labor mobilization kicked and the candidates assumed the attack position, several key questions emerged, which inevitably involved the White House.

Could Ciattarelli shake the tag of Trump vassal?

Could Sherrill connect with New Jersey without overly invoking the tantalizing target of Trump? Had the affordability crisis demoralized and soured people to the point where they didn't want to hear the blame game, and they just wanted some God damned solutions? New Jersey solutions. As tempting as it was to throw Trump out there, Sherrill had the additional challenge of trying to toughen up a flabby party, which had perhaps run out of boogeyman, even with Trump all-but suffocating Ciattarelli.

Amid the din, a Republican pulled InsiderNJ aside.

"We're going to win," he said, referring to the Ciattarelli campaign. "We're going to peel building trades guys, black males, and Latinos. We're going to cut into Mikie in Morris. That's why Jack picked [Morris County Sheriff Jim] Gannon. And we're going to corral property-tax agonized unaffiliated voters.

"Game over," he said.

A couple of days later, a Democrat yanked the other arm.

Sherrill wins.

Sure, but how?

She brings her own base, mostly built on fed-up suburban women voters. The primary proved that. She has a transcendent political identity that pulled from all around the state, and galvanized areas not traditionally associated with Democratic Party power. Last week, Newark Mayor Ras Baraka endorsed her candidacy, the beginning of a hard play for urban blacks, and black males in particular. Building Trades guys. She would go after them with a tough-minded message emphasizing labor gains. Latinos? They would tailor the message there and fight for them. And they would reengage a party too cynical to this point to even pay attention. The numbers finally favored Democrats, certainly, and if they simply turned out, they would win.

Republicans saw a trend line, however.

While the state Secretary of State's Office shows 860,000 more registered Democrats than Republicans, the number has fallen from 1.1 million.

From NJ Spotlight News:

Although both the Republican and Democratic parties have seen growth in new voter registrations nationwide, Republican registrations have jumped by about 35% compared to a 20% increase for Democrats.

New Jersey-based Republican strategist Chris Russell, an adviser to Jack Ciattarelli, the GOP’s nominee for governor, says the registration numbers bode well for Republicans in the November election.

In his quest to win over unaffiliated voters, Ciattarelli rightly peppered away at Democrats, while also struggling to credibly squeeze military moderate Sherrill into a Mamdani mold. But could Sherrill cohere progressive base voters while convincing independents?

Money certainly made both sides nervous with less than two months remaining. If Democrats flooded the state, could they swamp Jack? And what if Trump, in desperation mode, dropped $30 million in the final weeks? Could Mikie prevail? Democrats said she could, especially as Trump's tariffs hardly helped Ciattarelli's cause, and the so-called beautiful budget bill supplied plenty of ammo at just the right time. Could Ciattarelli turn an albatross into an eagle? On edge, the country craved greater security and public safety. Could Republicans penetrate with a protective message?

It was volatile, just like the President, incidentally, the ultimate volatile figure, whose allies still felt confident, at the very least, about bullying the opposition, led in New Jersey by a candidate tested by far tougher rivals than silver spoons and golf carts. But for all the talent and ability, and people's overall belief in both candidates, it was far bigger than biography - the kid from Jersey, the Annapolis grad - in both cases, and probably there too in decidedly different ways. Like all good competitions, finally it hinged on the now, and in politics, the people - of all people - would have the last word.