In the playbooks of top political tacticians, the move is known as the “headfake.”

The strategy: to tease the opponent into wasting time by rallying for electoral votes in friendly states where he is already favored, while draining the candidate’s campaign war chest in costly broadcast markets before the heated final weeks of the November election.

“The idea is to get into the other guy’s head, to make him say, ‘What do they know that I don’t know?'” said Roger Stone, the veteran Republican operative. He said the political feints worked when his campaign with Ronald Reagan forced Walter Mondale to campaign in Wisconsin in 1984, but it backfired when President Bush raced to California in the 2000 election to “set the bait” for Vice President Gore, who “didn’t bite.”

As Mr. Bush plans for his first campaign rally in New Jersey this afternoon in the largely suburban and Republican Burlington County, strategists like Mr. Stone said the president’s campaign is taking a risky gambit stumping in a state that has consistently awarded its 15 electoral votes to Democrats over the last three elections – and by wide margins.

“If Bush believes he can win New Jersey, he would also have to believe he could grow two heads,” said Hank Sheinkopf, a Democratic consultant. “It simply ain’t gonna happen.”

Staffers for the Bush campaign, however, insist that the president’s appearance in New Jersey – which follows a trip to the Garden State by Vice President Cheney last week and accompanies a separate event today by the first lady, Laura Bush – is not an attempt to draw out Mr. Kerry.

“This is no head fake,” said Kevin Madden, a Bush spokesman. “The two most valuable commodities in an election are time and money, and we’re spending both. With days to go [until the November 2 election], the president couldn’t send a more emphatic message that we’re going to win New Jersey.”

According to six polls of likely voters taken from October 1 to October 14, the president trails Mr. Kerry by an average of 5.2 points in New Jersey – a lead that’s hardly as razor-thin as Mr. Kerry’s tentative hold in key battleground states such as Pennsylvania and Ohio, where polls show the two candidates neck-and-neck.

However, Mr. Kerry’s lead among likely voters in New Jersey is hardly as compelling as the 16 percentage points by which Mr. Gore won New Jersey four years ago. The reason, according to Bush backers, is the infighting and power vacuum among state Democrats surrounding the recent resignation of Governor McGreevey, who had hired his former aide and gay lover, Golan Cipel, to be the state’s terrorism tsar.

“The Democrats are more worried about themselves right now than doing their part to get out the vote for their man [Mr. Kerry],” said the executive director of the New Jersey Republican State Committee, Brian Nielson. The committee recently received $150,000 from the Republican National Committee for local-get-out-the-vote drives.

Given the financial support from the national party, and the political fallout from “the McGreevey factor,” Mr. Nielson said the state’s electoral votes could be in the hands of conservative-minded Democrats who would vote against their party because they feel they can “sleep better at night with Bush at the helm.”

Despite the investments of Bush campaign cash and sunny predictions, Kerry campaign staffers said yesterday they aren’t worried about losing New Jersey and have no plans for Mr. Kerry, who is scheduled to campaign in Florida for the next two days, or Mr. Edwards, who gave speeches in New Jersey on September 28 and October 7, to campaign there anymore.

“We’re not taking the bait on this one,” said the director of the New Jersey Democratic State Committee, A.J. Sabath. “We have our strategy; we’re not panicking; we’re sticking to our guns.”

“Look, we’d love to retail John Kerry in New Jersey and have him shaking hands and kissing babies,” Mr. Sabath added, “but frankly, we’d rather have him in places were we need the electoral votes [in swing states].”

While the state party has been plagued by infighting, Mr. Sabath said the increasing number of volunteer workers and the committee’s on-the-ground movements to register voters will ultimately prove that the president’s effort to win New Jersey’s electoral votes will be a “waste in strategy and money.”

As for Mr. Bush spending his time in New Jersey today, Mr. Sabath said, “We’re thrilled to have him. We only wish he decides to spend his entire campaign here.”