There is increasing agitation among Democrats concerning the impact of $36 million pressing down on battered incumbent U.S. Senator Bob Menendez (D-NJ). It’s a tight, ugly energy race, and the late concussion of Republican challenger Bob Hugin’s ads has Democrats in hurry-up mode, trusting in down-the-stretch GOTV to bail the incumbent.

Newark’s engaged.

The North Ward is mobilized.

A captain there dressed down one of his door bangers who had fashioned a choke-it-down Menendez message for voters, laying into him and demanding that he actually make an aggressive positive case for the senator.

The South Ward has surrogate Alturrick Kenney on the ballot.

East Orange – home to Essex County Democratic Committee Chairman Leroy Jones – features Assemblywoman Britnee Timberlake on the ballot in a special LD34 election.

In Hudson, the Hudson County Democratic Organization (HCDO) can’t compete with state Senator Brian P. Stack in terms of sheer mechanical precision. That was always Team Stack’s argument for why the senator (and local mayor) would be a better choice for chair than Amy DeGise, who beat him in June. But Stack and Menendez are tight. It’s a Union City thing. Stack has an event tonight. Reportedly he’s going all out. And the HCDO forces are all one phone call away from bedlam, so they know what they have to do.

That freed up the boss to this week leaned harder into Middlesex County, staging events in Edison and New Brunswick, as he tries to ensnare the big unwieldy battleground county in his column. Trying to corral that blue collar suburban vote the polls show squiggling away from him, he stood onstage today with a strand of Irish politicians in New Brunswick. The billing included former Governors Dick Codey and Jim McGreevey, state Senator Joe Cryan, and Assemblyman Tom Giblin.

There’s also a brutal local race in Perth Amboy – home to Middlesex’s biggest plurality of Democrats – so the campaign hopes that creates a spike point.

But the air war-intensified Hugin – in the county Gov. Chris Christie yanked away from Democrat Jon Corzine in 2009 (granted, there was an asset monetization encumbrance for Corzine that year; the dynamics are a little different, but the corruption trial hardly bulks up Menendez here) – is trying to pick off all the lost highway angst in Middlesex.

It’s close there.

The county’s a battleground.

Badly beating his Democratic rival in Ocean and Monmouth (by 21 points), Hugin has repeated Governor Chris Christie’s NJ campaign preference of staying engaged on what should be his opponent’s turf. Tom Kean tried that once against Menendez in 2006 and got lawnmowered out of the county. Having grown up in Union City himself – much the same way Christie was a Newark native – Hugin continues to unapologetically spend time kicking around the Hudson and Essex barns – with events in Union City and Newark.

Democrats are infuriated by his repeated efforts to package himself as an independent Republican, despite the fact that he was a Trump delegate in 2016 and gave $5,400 to his primary and general efforts, but Hugin has stayed on offense with a message to voters wholly focused on Menendez’s negatives.

Away from the nerve center of his twin power bases of Hudson and Essex, it’s penetrated late in suburban areas like the 38th District where state Senator Joe Lagana of Paramus is on the ballot in a special election, and in Bergen generally. Bergen County Executive Joe Tedesco is popular – as is incumbent U.S. Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-5) – but they – the congressman in particular – have had to press harder with Menendez on the ballot. One Democratic source said the Democrat’s lead over Hugin was seven points three weeks ago in Bergen, but the ads have conceivably tightened that margin.

No, no, they haven’t, one Democratic operative argued, making the case that the sheer awful energy of Hugin’s ads will backfire on him. But he spoke half heartedly.

Then there’s the potential for those battleground districts – 11, 7, 4 and 3 – to drive up voter turnout, and not in a good way for the incumbent U.S. Senator, whose presence – by the reckoning of Patrick Murray’s polling – amounts to a wet blanket on a blue wave. In CD-11, Democrat Mikie Sherrill’s up by four or five, according to internal polling. Menendez is down by nine. Will the race have the effect ultimately of driving  out warring Sherrill and Assemblyman Jay Webber (R-26) voters who have the lone common denominator of being anti-Menendez? That dynamic possibility exists too in the 7th, where Democrat Tom Malinowski is running a ferocious campaign to unseat U.S. Rep. Leonard Lance (R-7), and in the 3rd, where Democrat Andy Kim wants to vanquish incumbent U.S. Rep. Tom MacArthur (R-3). Dormant in a ho-hum election year, those districts might not present a threat, but have the potential 2012 Steve Rothman in downtown Paterson effect in this election cycle.

Hogwash, argue Menendez’s core supporters.

Ultimately voters will be going out to stick it to President Donald J. Trump, and will use every disposable instrument to make that overriding statement, including the wounded hulk of the Menendez campaign.

But it’s too close for most.

Those living in the climes of power who have not been tested for years say it’s all about Trump and Menendez should win – maybe not comfortably – but without having to break more than the sweat he has now.

Others in more volatile areas express less confidence.

Too close to call, they say. The Hugin ads overpowering barbershops, bars and living rooms have chopped away at what looked stronger a week or two weeks ago, and forced a reevaluation. If Hugin had another two or three weeks at this rate he might overtake Menendez, one source – convinced of a close Menendez victory on Nov. 6th – told InsiderNJ.

“But the way things are going, who’s to say Hugin wouldn’t win on Nov. 13th,” the source added.