Those of us in the broadcast range of New Jersey’s two media markets — the 30 million or so within shouting distance of Philadelphia and New York City — are under regular bombardment from the two gubernatorial candidates vying to succeed Governor Phil Murphy.

For the most part, the advertisements that Republican candidate Jack Ciattarelli is running focus on the issues relevant to New Jersey voters. The state’s crushing property-tax burden features prominently. So does the rising cost of electricity. In one ad that is on regular rotation, Ciattarelli blames rising utility rates on the state’s malinvestment in scuttled green energy projects, and he features his opponent, Democrat Mikie Sherrill, seeming to endorse the growing cost of electricity. “We need to move into clean power,” Sherrill says in the ad. “It’s going to cost you an arm and a leg, but if you’re a good person, you’ll do it.”

It’s an effective spot. It’s also misleading.

“Sometimes our messaging in the Democratic Party, not great,” Sherrill told liberal radio host Dean Obeidallah in March in the segment from which the clip was taken. “Meaning, I think for years we’ve sort of said, ‘We need to move into clean power.’ And there’s almost been this understanding, ‘It’s going to cost you an arm and a leg,’ but if you’re a good person, you’ll do it.” Sherrill was actually critiquing a caricatured version of how climate-conscious Democrats retail their policy preferences.

One might call that dirty pool, but Sherrill has played the same game.

In addition to a charge of being “100 percent MAGA,” Jack Ciattarelli has been accused by his Democratic opponent of “talking about a 10 percent sales tax.” Indeed, as Ciattarelli himself says in the spot, “a 10 percent sales tax on everything.” That’s our Jack — “100 percent MAGA, 100 percent wrong for New Jersey.”

Sherrill’s campaign is right — Ciattarelli was talking about a 10 percent sales tax, but he wasn’t exactly proposing one. Rather, in the speech that the Sherrill campaign clipped, the candidate was reflecting on the tax structure in Tennessee, which “has no income tax” but also “has a 10 percent sales tax on everything” (New Jersey has a 7 percent sales tax on top of a progressive income tax structure). “We’re going to look at what other states do,” he said. “And every option is on the table.”

Maybe all’s fair in politics, but the ad war in New Jersey has become pretty dirty. Still, we can discern the candidates’ strategies from these ads. While Ciattarelli is going local, Sherrill is trying to nationalize the race, transforming the election into a referendum on Donald Trump. It’s an evasive strategy, but it also seems to be working for her.

A recent Quinnipiac University poll of New Jersey voters showed Sherrill winning 49 percent of the vote to Ciattarelli’s 41 percent. While his voters are a little more enthusiastic for November than are hers, the Democratic candidate just has more of them. But the GOP nominee’s “unfavorable” rating is ten points higher than Sherrill’s.

Moreover, the top issue for the state’s Democratic voters isn’t electricity costs, property tax rates, or inflation. Their biggest concern is “ethics in government,” which is a perennial consideration in a state like New Jersey. But in the absence of any pressing ethics scandal in the Garden State, it’s reasonable to conclude that “ethics in government” is a way for Democratic and Democrat-leaning voters to express displeasure with Donald Trump. And because New Jersey is dominated by Democratic voters, “ethics in government” is voters’ second-most priority — well behind “taxes,” but outpacing every other pressing issue.

On taxes, which 30 percent of voters rank as their top concern (“ethics in government” comes in at 14 percent), Ciattarelli edges out Sherrill by 6 points when voters are asked which candidate is best suited to address the issue. And when voters were asked the all-important question of which candidate “cares about the needs and problems of people like you,” Ciattarelli earns a positive score (by just one point, at 44 to 43 percent). But voters are more likely to say Sherrill is “honest” and has strong “leadership skills.” The Democrat even edges out the GOP nominee on the question of which candidate is better positioned to handle the energy crisis.

It’s highly likely that voters are not critically evaluating Sherrill’s plan to declare a state of emergency only to impose a price-fixing scheme on New Jersey utilities. More probably, they’re defaulting to the anti-Trump bias that Sherrill is courting in her ads. If that dynamic holds in November, the Democratic Party will beat the odds and secure a rare third consecutive term in the state house.