After concentrating on distributing mailers in the district until now, the National Republican Congressional Committee’s independent expenditure arm is up this week with its first radio and television ads in the Garden State’s battleground 7th district.

In the north-central New Jersey seat of retiring Rep. Mike Ferguson, state Sen. Leonard Lance (R) is locked in a tough fight with state Assemblywoman Linda Stender (D), and neither side appears to have a clear advantage.

“With our financial system in crisis and unemployment rising, the economy should be Linda Stender’s No. 1 priority,” a narrator says in the NRCC’s new ad, which is running on radio and cable television. “But when appointed to the New Jersey State Employment and Training Commission to develop new work force initiatives, Linda Stender missed 14 consecutive meetings.

“If Linda Stender skipped out on all of those chances to improve our economy on the state level, where do you think she’ll be if we send her to Congress?”

The NRCC dropped about $123,000 on the cable ads and another $53,000 on the radio ads.

So far this cycle, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has spent more than $1 million on independent expenditures in the district.