DeLay Will Face Voters' Verdict This Week

With more money in the bank than the other challengers, Campbell is the front-runner among the Republicans trying to unseat DeLay.

Campbell is running campaign commercials that highlight his assertions of integrity, attempting to draw an implicit contrast with DeLay. The ads elicited responses from the DeLay camp, questioning Campbell's Republican credentials and bashing him for holding a campaign fundraiser in Utah.

A staunch conservative and former DeLay supporter, Campbell said he entered the race because he was appalled by the congressman's legal and ethical problems. "Twenty-two years is long enough. It's time for a change," said Campbell as he made the rounds last week at Mexican and Pakistani restaurants and at the largest radio station targeting the diverse South Asian and Muslim population that lives in the district.

With primary elections traditionally low-turnout events, Campbell hopes that anti-DeLay sentiment and a few hundred votes from various ethnic groups can get him into a runoff. "These pockets of voters here and there can make a difference in an election like this," Campbell said.

Eric Thode, Republican chairman in Fort Bend, the district's largest jurisdiction, calls such thinking "delusional."

"I don't think there's any doubt that Congressman DeLay will win," said Thode, whose organization, along with the local and statewide GOP leadership, has endorsed DeLay's reelection.

There is no party registration in Texas, which means that Democrats can vote in the Republican primary and vice versa.

DeLay has put on a low-profile primary campaign, choosing to focus on reaching the most dedicated primary voters through direct-mail pitches and phone calls. DeLay has not run any radio or television ads so far, reflecting the campaign's belief that they would heighten the profile of the GOP primary and bring out anti-DeLay voters. The decision also allows him to husband resources for the general election campaign. As of Feb. 15, DeLay had $1.3 million in the bank.

"We've identified voters; we're down to the neighborhood level and we know the numbers of votes we need by precinct to win," said DeLay's campaign manager, Chris Homan. "That's more credible to me than any media poll."

His focus, Homan said, is to identify voters "so we go into the general election with a highly organized base of support so they go into their neighborhoods and talk about the difference between Tom DeLay and Nick Lampson."

DeLay has taken his message to the party faithful, such as those attending the Harris County Republican Party's annual fundraiser in Houston last week. Cheered and given a standing ovation, DeLay made only casual reference to party primaries -- calling them a sign that the GOP in Texas has grown -- and saved his ammunition for the Democrats. He is running, as he says often now, against a Democratic-initiated "politics of personal destruction and character assassination."

Democrats are hoping DeLay is the GOP nominee because they believe he is politically damaged enough for them to defeat in November. Without DeLay, Democrats would be hard-pressed to win in a district that gave President Bush 64 percent of the vote in 2004.

Most political observers believe DeLay will win -- in the short run, at least.

"I expect him to make it through the primary fairly handily, but my sense of this is that DeLay is in trouble over the course of this election cycle," said Cal Jillson, a political science professor at Southern Methodist University. "There's an even-money prospect of beating DeLay in the general election. He is wounded."

Cillizza, a staff writer for washingtonpost.com, reported from Washington.