we are just a week away from election day but hundreds of thousands of votes have already been cast via mail or through early iners voting here in Jersey and this year it's more of a culture War than a campaign War especially in hotly contested districts when it comes to hot button issues like abortion and parental rights Democrats are wasting no time capitalizing on the issues in hopes of avoiding a red wave but will it be enough senior political correspondent David Cruz has more on what races to watch sure election day proper is next Tuesday but we've been voting for weeks now in New Jersey and finally the Republicans appear to be catching up on this GOP chairman Bob hugan says he's not a big fan of early voting but as in Rome when in Jersey it denies the voter the opportunity to make fully formed decisions and vote for the best candidate but that could be the very reason why these campaigns feel like they start earlier and earlier almost 400,000 votes have already been cast VIA mail or by early voting and those early birds had already been getting the message and in the districts expected to be the most competitive that is the third 4th 11th and 16th the message has stoked the flame of hot button issues true Mor AR voted for a radical law that prohibits parents from being told when they're 5-year-old wants to change their name or their gender in school dur even endorsed the idea of spaying women like dogs My Generation fought for roie Wade almost all the campaigns start off by saying it's about affordability stupid but affordability is not what's driving voters in what the political class likes to call low turnout elections analyst mic rasmusen has paid attention to all the noise all summer so you didn't have have to in this final week of election season he says expect more of what you've been seeing you want to remind them of everything you've said over the course of the last six or eight weeks um and say see if you care about parental notification you need to show up or if you care about abortion rights you need to show up those that haven't uh kicked into the vote by mail process you know we go after them in the uh the early voting at the polls but we still continue to chase vote by males all the way through election day money is key and new data from the election law enforcement commission show all four of the races we're watching made the list of most expensive with independent expenditure groups in the 11th District alone expected to spend upwards of 9 million dollar that's where relative newcomer Republican Steve denista is challenging incumbent Vin gopal I've seen the ads attacking him they're all Li are you serious don't get me started in South Jersey where Republicans have been making inroads the talk of late is about Phantom candidates they claim this guy jepi castano may be a real person but he's not a real candidate they claim his campaign is a creation of South Jersey Democrats intended to siphon votes from Republican Chris Del barello chairman yugan says that's probably illegal you cannot have a fake candidate out there uh taking money from the outside that's coordination when you don't run a campaign there's pot po very significant illegal things going on that have to be examined now and there's been some discussion as to whether or not somebody is is is entering the race in good faith and putting their B their their their uh their name on the ballot in good faith the problem is we can't really Define good faith generally that's left to the voters who are increasingly forced to weit through political muck admire in order to figure it out which leaves a lot of them just deciding to stay home even if election day lasts a whole month I'm David Cruz NJ Spotlight News [Music]