Faced with a virtually-tied 2nd Congressional District race, Democrat Amy Kennedy and incumbent Republican Jeff Van Drew are spending the last days of the campaign finding every last vote.
“In this final push, I know you are doing everything you can,” Kennedy told a group of supporters — some in Halloween costumes — Saturday afternoon at the Galloway Township Municipal Building. “We know 30% of Democrats are still sitting on their ballots. We’ve got to get them in. That will put us over the edge.”
Her campaign was there to provide information on voting to anyone who needed it and to motivate volunteers to keep working to get the last voters to cast ballots.
The Nov. 3 election is the state’s first general election to be conducted mostly via vote-by-mail ballots. Gov. Phil Murphy ordered the paper ballots be sent to every registered voter in the state, a total of 6 million.
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A Stockton University poll released Friday showed Kennedy and Van Drew in a dead heat, but it found that more Republicans than Democrats polled said they hadn’t yet voted.
As he toured downtown Hammonton on Friday afternoon, taking pictures with supporters, Van Drew said that may be because Republicans are wary of the vote-by-mail process and believe voting by machine is less prone to misuse.
“They are holding back but are going to vote in the end,” Van Drew said, adding many probably will show up in person to vote with a paper provisional ballot at the polls. “We are calling all of those folks. Many have said they just voted.”
Van Drew was encouraging people in that heavily Republican area to vote and asking for their support as he went from Marcello’s Restaurant to several other businesses. He and his group of supporters ended the tour at Mannino’s Cannoli Express, where everyone bought a treat.
Almost all of the people he ran into, mostly Republicans, said they already voted.
Election Day is Tuesday, and while people can still drop of their vote-by-mail ballots in secure drop boxes throughout the district or mail them back, it’s probably safest to use a drop box at this point. Contents of drop boxes are picked up daily and taken directly to the Board of Elections.
Voters also can go to the polls and fill out a paper provisional ballot, or vote by machine if they sign an affidavit saying they have a disability that prevents them from voting with a paper ballot.
Kennedy’s campaign organizers said they are getting volunteers, like the large group that joined Kennedy in Galloway on Saturday, to make calls to registered Democrats who have not yet voted.
Van Drew said his campaign is focused on doing what he has to do each day to get his supporters to vote. The work keeps his nerves at bay he said.
“We are going to different towns, talking to voters,” said Van Drew campaign manager Ron Filan. “It’s what we’ve done the whole campaign.”
Kennedy said she is less nervous for this election than she was for the primary in July, when she faced four other Democrats.
“I was running then against people I shared a lot of ideals with,” Kennedy said.
“She has blown me away with her equilibrium. I’m the one who’s nervous,” said Kennedy’s husband, Patrick Kennedy, a former Rhode Island congressman and son of the late U.S. Sen. Ted Kennedy. “I’ve never been more nervous for any of my own campaigns.”
