according to a new rutger Eagleton poll out today it's not the mudslinging over National culture wars that matters most to New Jersey voters turns out it's taxes and the economy of course the poll finds a combined 40% of those surveyed named fiscal issues as the biggest Factor behind their vote today from property taxes and inflation to the cost of living and affordability according to the survey pocketbook issues could be the deciding factor this year or will they for more on that I'm joined by our senior political correspondent David Cruz and Senior writer Colleen O'Dea right David and Colleen welcome a big night ahead of us so this Eagleton poll kind of flies in the face of what pundits have been saying all along Colleen I mean 40% when you combine it from those who were surveyed say it's the economy stupid yeah and we should all be remembering that and as Ashley cling from Ruckers pointed out uh that almost lost Murphy the election 2 years ago not not concentrating on that so um this time around the Democrats really have in their mailers and their ads been focused a lot on the tax breaks anchor State stay andj though who knows when that might happen um but I mean the the the thing that I think that seems most interesting about that is that this this is when you ask the person you this is not the do you think X issue is important this was asking what issue do you think is important and and that's f issues came out on top yeah when they asked uh those who were pulled individually about these certain topics Moore said that these soall culture War issues mattered but David I mean to the extent that you've covered it have Republicans Or democrats seized this moment of the issues that are really going to Galvanize voters I think to the extent that um issues matter to voters uh Republicans have really cleaned the Democrats clock All Summer Long whether it's wind keep your hands off my uh gas stoves uh trans teens parental notification all of those things they've defined the narrative and the Democrats have been shown to be on defense I mean when you have the Senate President the assembly speaker um all saying uh hold up Governor we don't necessarily agree with you on you name it um that means you're you're at least The Narrative from your side is a little off they were forced to take some difficult positions on issues that maybe they would not have had to all right so Colleen um all of this is happening under the shadow of a newly drawn uh map why does that matter for this election so it matters for a number of reasons for one thing a lot of people are going to be going into the polling place today and saying hm what district am I in I didn't used to be in this District um and not seeing any familiar name perhaps whereas you know in the past if you've always voted for a certain person you might just click his lever well that may not be there this time so that may put incumbents at a little bit of a disadvantage um the map that was adopted was a compromise map and so we're supposed to help Democrats in certain districts and help Republicans in certain districts what's happened though in the last two years since the last election is that there there has been an increase in Republican uh a greater increase in Republican registration so we've got um 29 districts where the Democrats actually have a smaller percent of uh registered voters than they did two years ago uh that's certainly not going to help them uh Republicans on the other hand have a greater percentage of the voter registration than they did two years ago but Democrats still outnumber Republican voters two to one so so David then does early voting make a big difference here I think when we look back at this election we're going to see that this was the beginning of a transition what it ends up becoming I'm not sure but uh Republicans are now starting to um get the message that vote by mail works if you work it um and early voting is something that they could use to their advantage they've been uh handicapping themselves by criticizing these modes of election but they're here to stay uh and so now they're going to have to start to get better at it and I think that we'll see now also election campaigning and stuff starting sooner because everybody's voting you know a month ahead of election day so I think that's going to be interesting to see it already starts so soon all right David Cruz Colleen O'Dea thank you uh stick around we will see you later tonight [Music]