BY COLLEEN O'DEA

The last week before an election, it’s impossible to watch a television show or scroll the Internet without seeing campaign ads.

For New Jerseyans, most of those involve the 7^th District race, which both parties consider a must-win for controlling the U.S. House of Representatives for the next two years.

Republican incumbent Tom Kean Jr. faces a strong challenge from Democrat Rebecca Bennett in a contest that is already the most expensive House race in state history – close to $35 million in combined candidate and outside spending so far, according to the website OpenSecrets, which tracks money in politics. Much of that has been spent on television, digital and direct-mail advertising.

The closing message from the pro-Bennett forces – her campaign, House Majority PAC and other groups – remains what it has been for most of the race: Kean missed 140 votes while absent from the House for four months, while at the same time trading some $600,000 in stocks. The Bennett’s campaign’s own late ad, which began running Oct. 26, focuses more broadly on Kean’s time in Congress, saying he doubled his net worth and traded a total of $5.2 million, tying his investments in data centers, defense and insurance stocks to votes he cast.

Ads by Kean and the National Republican Congressional Committee have sought to tie Bennett to a scandal involving a Pennsylvania pediatrician convicted of sexually abusing children because she worked for a company that had a partnership with a health care firm that owned a hospital where the pediatrician practiced. They have also painted her as a millionaire: Kean’s latest ad shows two people with Jersey accents discussing the ad about the scandal over a cup of coffee, calling Bennett a “greedy millionaire” and saying she refused to go to church with Republicans.

All the ads leave out key details. For instance, none of the anti-Kean ads explain that he was absent from Congress due to a diagnosis of depression. The Pennsylvania pediatrician pled guilty well before Bennett was involved in the health care firm.

But they are designed to get viewers angry and prompt them to vote a certain way. And while many people complain about them, research shows that they work.

The 7^th District ads have tended to be more specific to this race, rather than echoing themes from many of the national ads -- although pro-Bennett messages have mentioned affordability, high gas prices and the war in Iran in attacking Kean.

In ads attacking his opponent, Rep. Jeff Van Drew (R-2^nd) borrows from the attack national Republicans have been levelling at Democrats and lumps Zack Mullock, the mayor of Cape May, in with “crazy radical socialists” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio (D-NY) and New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani. The ads also ties Mullock to electric company executives who keep raising rates.

The 2^nd District race was not considered in play until recently and Mullock’s chances of victory are still slim. Mullock hasn’t had much money to advertise, getting nearly $1.5 million in support only within the last few weeks from Project 218 PAC, which has paid for an ad tying Van Drew to Trump. Mullock’s own general election offering touches on the Democrats’ themes of higher food and gas prices, the war and Van Drew taking contributions from data center executives and also introduces himself as a viable alternative.

There’s little chance of any other incumbent losing in New Jersey so ads in other races have been spare. In the 9^th District, which Republicans had set their sites on two years ago due to President Trump’s win there, Democratic incumbent Nellie Pou appears to unlikely to lose. Her ads, in English and Spanish, so far have been positive, focused on her candidacy and ignoring Republican opponent Rosie Pino. Pino, similarly is airing ads in multiple languages introducing herself.