On Nov. 6, voters in New Jersey’s 3rd Congressional District will see the names of two men on their ballots:  Democrat Andy Kim and Republican incumbent Tom MacArthur.

But for many of them, who they choose will depend upon how they feel about a third man: President Donald Trump. And how that vote ultimately shakes out is anybody's guess. The two candidates are in a dead heat, according to a Monmouth University poll,  and the district itself is as polarized politically as it is geographically.

On a map, the South Jersey district looks like a butterfly with its wings stretching to the Delaware River on the west, capturing almost all of Burlington County, and to the Jersey Shore on the east, grabbing almost all of Ocean County. The two counties share a few things in common — a large population of retirees and veterans, many of whom were once stationed at the Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst in Burlington County, and the stretch of Route 70 that slices through the Pinelands.

But the similarities end there, said Ben Dworkin of the Rowan Institute for Public Policy & Citizenship. “People in Ocean County watch New York television and people in Burlington County watch Philadelphia television. And they have therefore different mindsets, not just different sports teams, but different understanding of the way of the world," he said.

Burlington leans blue, with an estimated 116,475 registered Democrats and 78,000 Republicans. Ocean County is the mirror opposite with an estimated 87,000 Democrats and roughly 136,000 Republicans.

In 2016, Burlington voters backed Hillary Clinton while Ocean went for Trump.

“To the degree there is a concentration of Trump supporters in New Jersey, they live in Ocean County,” Dworkin said.

The third district has one of the most competitive congressional races in a year when Democrats nationwide are hoping for enough wins to take control of the U. S. House. 

Kim, a newcomer to electoral politics, was a White House national security adviser in the Obama Administration. MacArthur is a two-term Representative who has been a Trump loyalist.

Kim has hammered at MacArthur’s record of voting with Trump to dismantle the Affordable Care Act, and for taking money from corporate PACs. MacArthur, meanwhile, has accused Kim of embellishing his national security experience. A GOP-PAC supporting MacArthur has run ads saying Kim — who is a Korean-American — is “not one of us.”

The layout of the district presents unique challenges for each candidate. Kim grew up in Marlton and has strong support there, and while there are more registered Democrats than Republicans, many of them only vote in Presidential elections.

Ocean County, meanwhile, is MacArthur's base of support. But it has more senior citizens than any other county in New Jersey and his efforts in 2017 to repeal the Affordable Care Act does not endear him to them. MacArthur unsuccessfully tried to pass legislation that would have allowed insurers to charge seniors more for coverage. 

AARP said it was already a bad bill that MacArthur made worse.

Those seniors include James and Maria Thompson, retirees who live in Willingboro, a racially diverse community in Burlington County. He’s an 86-year-old veteran of the Korean War who earned a purple heart while serving with the Army’s 24th Infantry, an all-black regiment known as the Buffalo Soldiers.

“I almost lost my arm — shrapnel,” James Thompson said, while standing in his family room, surrounded by plaques, paintings and other art depicting Buffalo Soldiers. We were in a position with crossing the Han River and they dropped artillery on us ... I was on my weapon and I just stayed there on it firing until our people crossed over."

He got a Bronze star, too, but was confronted by segregation upon his return as he traveled through Kansas.

“Not thinking and I went in this restaurant to get a sandwich and the lady said, ‘No you gotta go around back.’ I said, “Oh wow, I forgot I’m in the United States.’ ”

Both James and Maria fear a return of those days under Trump, and cite the violence at last year’s white supremacist rally in Charlottesville last year as an example. Trump said the marchers and those protesting them were both at fault.

Maria, who grew up in Nazi Germany, found his comments appalling, and said he has opened the door for racists to come out publicly.“Did we ever have anything like that when other presidents were in?”

The Thompsons oppose MacArthur because of his association with the president. MacArthur supported Trump’s tax plan when the four other Republicans in the New Jersey congressional delegation opposed it. It limited how much state and local taxes homeowners could deduct from their federal taxes to $10,000.

“That man, as far as I’m concerned, he never did [anything] for the state of New Jersey,” said Thompson. “He raised the taxes - what Trump asked him to do, he did. "

As a military family, they like Kim's national security experience, especially that he advised generals in Afghanistan.  But their main priority is to deliver a Democrat-controlled U. S. House that will oppose Trump.

“I need a Democrat to help me kick Trump out of office,” Thompson said.

But on the other side of the district, there are Republicans just as passionate to keep Trump and the Republican Party in the majority.  One of them is Petra Autenrieth — a 43-year-old single mom and businesswoman who runs her own bus company, mostly shuttling seniors to various activities during the week, and carrying wedding parties on weekends.

Autenrieth grew up in Toms River, the heart of Ocean County, in the same quaint Victorian home she now shares with her 5-year-old daughter. She sees MacArthur, who moved to Ocean County prior to seeking election to Congress four years ago, as an advocate.

MacArthur is co-chair of the Bipartisan Heroin Task Force and has brought attention to the county’s high rate of opioid deaths, and he criticized FEMA after victims of Hurricane Sandy were wrongly denied funds.

Autenrieth says she plans to support MacArthur because he represents her values,  like a strong military, patriotism, and Trump's plan for a Mexican border wall.

"When somebody is in here in our country, when they shouldn't be here, who's accountable for that?" she said. "They're coming in with drugs, whether they're forced to or not. They're bringing the drugs in and then it's trickle down to Ocean County. Here we are. We have an epidemic. So it all ties in together."

She hopes Republicans will turn out in big numbers on election day. 

"I feel like we need the Republicans to get in gear," Autenrieth said, because the Democrats are scratching at the door.