The CD2 contest dominates the political classes in the closing hours of the 2020 election, as sources try to make sense of the intentions of those unaffiliated voters at the heart of the South Jersey District.

Most insiders see the other so-called battleground contests as already decided, snooze-alarming CD7, CD3, CD5 and CD11 as Democratic Party wins.

But South Jersey – the North Florida region of New Jersey – remains a question mark. Amy Kennedy’s Democratic Party advantages in Atlantic, Cumberland and Gloucester counties, and Van Drew’s Cape May and Ocean pluralities along with incisions into Atlantic – means the contest hinges on independents.

Van Drew did not expect the amount of money coming at him, and even his allies worry about the way Democrats have used his party switch from “D” to “R” to brand him a sharp-dressing amoral chameleon. They fear the repeated prime time penetration of the message will shake unaffiliateds in the direction of the Kennedy campaign.

“Why, why didn’t Jeff and those guys hit back harder against that?’ A Van Drew ally worried aloud to InsiderNJ.

“They made him look like an a-shole,” added the source, inconsolable, and genuinely concerned that it was simply too much weight on top of the party-wobbling incumbent. “Republicans already made up their minds, Democrats made up their minds, but those ads, those might have swayed independents.”

But Kennedy allies have their own nail-biting late in the game.

First, former state lawmaker Van Drew had 18 years to build relations across the aisle in Cape May and Cumberland. He yard-hopped down there to the barbecues and fish fries, and specialized, in fact, in being a cross-the-aisle guy. His gamble going back to throwing his arms around President Donald J. Trump and switching parties, was that he had banked enough hugs and face-time with independents not to bother them by changing uniforms.

Kennedy’s damning ads versus that hard hand clutch, meaningful stare in the driveway at a kid’s post graduation ceremony.

There’s the rub.

“Cape May, Cumberland, and yes, Western Atlantic – can Jeff nab those unaffiliated voters?” a source pondered.

Then there’s his own big spending effort on operative Craig Callaway for Atlantic City and Pleasantville provisional votes in what should be money country for Kennedy. If he wins the war for unaffiliated voters in the burbs and suppresses the urban vote, he has a play; while Kennedy late was still pressing for those conventional pluralities, while wagering on suburban voters – especially women – to turn against an incumbent who – in his own self-interest disguised as a lump-in-the-throat – locked in with Trump.