An interesting race is shaping up for the U.S. Senate seat from New Jersey between tax-cut trumpeter Jeffrey Bell and ex-New York Knick basketball star Bill Bradley.

The 34-year-old Bell, one-time New Jersey campaign director for Ronald Reagan, rode the crest of the Proposition 13 wave to a stunning upset over veteran incumbent and popular liberal Clifford Case in une's Republican primary. Since that time, the polls have had the widely recognized liberal Democrat Bradley way ahead.

"Dollar Bill's" current margin, however, stands only at about 35 per cent to 23 per cent. Bell, backed by a couple of hundred thou in campaign contributions from the Republican National Committee--the largest contribution to any non-incumbent candidate from the GOP--is waging a big media blitz in the last few weeks aimed at the large number of undecided voters. Issuing the standard call for huge tax cuts (of at least 30 per cent), Bell claims that the election is "a referendum on President Carter's economic policies."

Bradley has himself succumbed to the fever and called for mild tax cuts, but his equally heavily financed campaign is basically resting on his hoop fame and a strong belief that the new right cannot take on labor and the liberals in an industrial state and win. He's probably right.