the state's candidates for governor are in a critical moment of the hotly contested race Less than two weeks to go before voters choose their party's nominee And the challengers are pulling out all the stops including ramping up attack ads against the apparent front runner in the Democratic election Congresswoman Mikey Cheryl She's got the backing of the establishment and a lot of the cash and support that goes with it making her a prime target for negative ads that may sway voters minds in the days ahead Senior correspondent Joanna Gagas reports Turn on any TV or device right now and you're likely to see one of these ads Tired of the same old New Jersey political machine as mayor Steve Phillip took on the political machine and corporations Senator Sweeney is correct I agree with Senator Sweeney I do like you know what Senator Sweeney said Even his opponents agree Steve Sweeney is the only Democrat for governor ready on day one And with just over a week to go until primary election day and six Democratic candidates still in the race many have turned their sights and their ads towards Congresswoman Mikey Cheryl who's leading the pack in the latest polls She's abandoning her seat in Congress just when we need her to stand up to Trump Mikey Cheryl let us down Mikey took $30,000 from Elon Musk's campaign fund while Trump attacked abortion access Cheryl made a killing in the stock market during the pandemic and was fined for breaking ethics rules by not disclosing trades Democratic strategist Dan Bryan says he's actually surprised we haven't seen more attack ads sooner in this primary race I thought that this election was going to get negative earlier on honestly even as early as you know January or February I think the most interesting part of this is how uh they've stayed away from it Most of the campaigns have stayed away from it I think what you're seeing now is obviously there was a reluctance to go negative but I think what you're seeing now is an acknowledgement from some of the candidates that they still have uh room to go uh to make up going into election day The latest polls including one put out by StimSite Research a private opinion and market research company run by New Jersey pollster Patrick Murray found that Congresswoman Cheryl's lead has widened over the others In particular over the two mayors in the race Jersey City Mayor Steve Fulip and Newark Mayor Raz Baraka running as the most progressive candidates in our polling we see uh Mikey Cheryl ahead of the rest of the pack overall um with a significant margin uh in what we're looking at because in in large part because of that progressive lane being split So it's no surprise that the attack ads targeting Cheryl were paid for by Baraka and a pack supporting Fullup But as for how effective they'll be either in turning out the vote or changing people's minds here's Murray's take One of the things that we did see in our polling was that Mikey Cheryl was extremely trustworthy deemed as extremely trustworthy even among voters who weren't supporting her And the question is how strongly is that quality attached to her and that determines whether the attacks will be successful or not The dichotomy when you're the leader is how much of your time do you want to spend uh explaining things and how much do you just kind of want to go out and make your case to voters um I think it's a it's a tricky balance there Um I think they've handled it pretty well And for the most part really what you want to be doing is going out talking about yourself and talking about your positives and why you're the right candidate rather than trying to explain away all these attack ads Congresswoman Cheryl's communications director Sean Higgins seems to be taking the first approach I think right now they're grasping for straws Um they're recycling lies And um what we're doing is getting the truth out there putting out Mikey's positive vision on how she's going to lower costs how she's going to deliver for families and how she's the best candidate on the Democratic side and the one who can beat Jack Chitterelli um from being Trump's yes man in Trenton Higgins says the campaign is staying focused on Mikey's positive message but a pack supporting her put out this ad this week Same old politicians same old playbook lying about Mikey Cheryl for political gain The truth Independent news sources praise Mikey Cheryl's ethical standards saying she went above and beyond So it could get even muddier in a race that's still anyone's to win depending on who turns out or sits this one out on June 10th For NJ Spotlight News I'm Joanna Gagas