Democrat Tessa Hafen, challenging Rep. Jon Porter in the 3rd Congressional District, campaigns door to door on Mojave Lane in Henderson. Photo by K.M. Cannon. Rep. Jon Porter visits with voters at Caffe Delight in Laughlin. Photo by Gary Thompson. Tessa Hafen and her husband, Spencer Stewart, move a chair at a family gathering in Henderson. Seated in the foreground are, from left, Hafen's father, Henderson Councilman Andy Hafen; center, her grandmother, Mary Beth Dalton; and, right, her mother, Debi. Photo by Steve Andrascik/Review-Journal. High school seniors at Laughlin High School get a chance to talk with Rep. Jon Porter, R-Nev. Photo by Gary Thompson. Rep. Jon Porter plays the piano at Bonnie's Music Shoppe on Oct. 20. Porter also plays with a group called Second Amendments in Washington and often "works out" at a music store in Las Vegas. Photo by John Gurzinski. Tessa Hafen talks with Sabrina Gibbs and son Joshua, 2, while campaigning in Henderson for the 3rd Congressional District seat. Photo by K.M. Cannon.

As Tessa Hafen walks up the center of Henderson's Mojave Lane carrying a clipboard and campaign literature, she is greeted by growling and barking dogs that leap repeatedly against the chain-link fences that surround sagging mobile homes.

A woman shuffling toward Hafen glimpses the pamphlets in her hand.

"I'm a Satan worshiper," the woman mutters as she passes by.

That she has just been mistaken for peddling religious tracts rather than campaigning for office leaves Hafen, a Democrat trying to unseat Republican Jon Porter in Nevada's 3rd Congressional District, laughing.

At Bonnie Semblante's home, Hafen, attired in blue jeans, tennis shoes and a green "Hafen for Congress" T-shirt, likes what she hears.

"I want all of them in Congress out of there right now," Semblante tells Hafen, the former press secretary for U.S. Sen. Harry Reid.

"I think I can help you with that," Hafen says.

Wrapped up in this campaign outing -- during which voters often commented on her youthful appearance -- are the daunting challenges and the audacious hopes of a 30-year-old woman trying to defeat the only representative the district ever has had: a man praised by President Bush as "a rising star."

Does an individual who never has held elective office or been recognized for accomplishments in the private sector stand a realistic chance against an incumbent who has raised more than double her $1.1 million campaign war chest?

No doubt about it, says respected political analyst David Wasserman of the University of Virginia Center for Politics.

So it goes in 2006, with recent polls showing that only 16 percent of Americans view favorably the job done by a scandal-ridden Congress, where the Republican majority follows a president whose popularity has declined as the war in Iraq drags on.

With no record to defend, Hafen's best issue, Wasserman notes, is simple: She is not Jon Porter.

POWER OF INCUMBENCY

Outside Laughlin, on the newly widened highway to Needles, Calif., several police vehicles arrive with flashing lights to shut off a westbound lane.

The show of force is to protect a tent-covered, commemorative ceremony for the highway project that will be held just off the road.

Jo Elle Hurns, a former local chamber of commerce official, is effusive during her introduction of Porter, the featured speaker.

"You were always there for us to help get the funding," Hurns says to Porter.

Smiling as the applause swells, Porter talks about the team responsible for the project. "Thanks for letting me be part of it," he says.

As the 51-year-old Porter campaigns for re-election on this day in Laughlin, happily posing for pictures with people who'll display their connection to the nation's capital, the power of incumbency is apparent.

Businesspeople, government and school officials all say they are "honored" or "very honored" to be in the presence of a man who passed legislation to make children safer from sex predators by ensuring that would-be teachers are subject to criminal background checks.

"Never underestimate the power of the incumbency," says David Damore, an associate professor of political science at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. "Surveys show people want to throw the rascals out, but people also talk about experience."

A LATE CONTROVERSY

Only two weeks before the election, Jim Shepard, a former aide to Porter, charges the congressman has engaged in illegal behavior. "He has made fundraising phone calls from his official offices in violation of federal law," Shepard says.

Porter denies the charges describing them as "completely false." Supporters of the congressman say Shepard is a disgruntled former employee who was "let go" in June after trying to use the congressman's name to obtain tickets and other items for personal gain. Shepard says he resigned in June because of Porter's dismissive attitude toward the law and to protect himself against possible prosecution.

The Nevada State Democratic Party chairman, Tom Collins, asks U.S. Attorney Daniel Bogden to launch an investigation into Shepard's charges and calls on Porter to produce phone records.

Bogden forwards the request to the FBI for review.

Porter shows phone records and his schedule to the Review-Journal, but even he admits the documents don't conclusively show from where the fundraising phone calls were placed.

The Carpetbagger Card

Carved out of largely suburban Clark County before the 2002 election, the 3rd Congressional District is about equally split between registered Republicans and Democrats. With Republicans more likely to vote than Democrats, the district now largely is seen as the GOP's to lose.

The 2002 campaign of Porter's first Democratic challenger, then-County Commissioner Dario Herrera, couldn't overcome allegations against the commissioner of unethical behavior. In 2004, Porter easily beat former gaming executive Tom Gallagher, who had moved to Nevada in 1997, by painting him as a carpetbagger.

Porter, who moved to Nevada from Iowa in the late 1970s, was elected to the state Senate after serving as Boulder City councilman and mayor. The twice-divorced former insurance firm owner has tried to define Hafen just as he did Gallagher. She moved to Nevada from Virginia, Porter's ads charge, just to selfishly run for office.

Hafen lived in a Virginia suburb of the nation's capital for eight years while working for Reid.

How successful the carpetbagger attack has been -- the Hafen family moved to Nevada even before it was a state -- is debatable.

Hafen, who in July married Spencer Stewart, an associate vice president at Nevada State College, says she returned to Nevada each month while working in Washington.

At a rally recently in Henderson, Danny Thompson of the AFL-CIO angrily denounced Porter's tactics:

"I went to high school with Tessa's father and her uncle was the financial officer of my union. As a kid, I bought my first set of tires at her grandfather's store, OK Tires, which is still in Henderson. This is the worst form of dirty politics."

Though longtime residents of the Las Vegas Valley are well aware of the Hafen family roots, that isn't true of recent Nevada transplants.

On the campaign trail she hears from recent arrival Jason Smith: "You're that lady who just moved here from Virginia to get a job."

Porter is unapologetic about placing the carpetbagger tag on Hafen.

"She went to school in Utah for four years and worked in Washington for eight years," Porter says. "A lot went on in Nevada during that time."

At a dinner the Hafen family holds monthly, more than 40 members of the clan are on hand.

Before he eats, Andy Hafen, the longtime Henderson councilman who is Tessa Hafen's father, grins and shakes his head:

"I've known Jon Porter for about 20 years. When Tessa decided to run for Jon's office, he took me aside and said he realized she was family but he said he wasn't going to treat her any differently than any other candidate."

AN INCREASINGLY BITTER RACE

Nobody can accuse Hafen, trailing by 10 points in a September Review-Journal poll, of not giving as good as she gets in the increasingly bitter congressional campaign that has now been called a tossup by noted political analyst Stuart Rothenberg.

Repeatedly in ads and appearances, Hafen works to tie Porter to the "Republican culture of corruption." She portrays him as a go-along-to-get-along representative who has friends in Tom DeLay, Bob Ney and Randy Cunningham, all Republican congressmen brought down by recent financial scandals.

In the wake of Porter asking House Speaker Dennis Hastert to investigate Republican Rep. Mark Foley's salacious e-mails to House teenage male pages, Hafen suggests that Porter is tainted by the sex scandal. Her reasoning? Because Porter received campaign contributions from Hastert, who she believes tried to cover up Foley's actions, Porter is involved.

She also says she can't believe Porter has called for suspension of the House page program. "He's blaming the victims," she says.

Rather than the candidates detailing what they will do on issues important to Nevadans, the campaign is an expensive stretch-the-truth exercise in point-counterpoint, with Porter recently spending $1.4 million on ads to carry through the election. Hafen plans on spending $456,000 in the homestretch.

Though both candidates try to say the other is soft on illegal immigrants because each once said a Senate bill that allowed some illegals a path to citizenship had merit, each candidate now publicly denounces any form of "amnesty" for illegals.

As the American military's body count mounts in Iraq, Hafen stresses that Porter favors President Bush's "stay the course" strategy there.

"I'd rather fight the terrorists there than in the United States," Porter says. He finds Hafen's suggestion of a phased withdrawal akin to "giving your plays to your opponent."

Though Porter has consistently supported pay increases for the military, Hafen repeatedly keeps Porter on the defensive by pointing out that Porter voted in 2003 against a $1,500 bonus for troops in Afghanistan and Iraq.

To fight off Hafen's charges that he is a "lapdog for Bush" -- Congressional Quarterly found Porter supporting issues dear to the president nearly 90 percent of the time -- the congressman tries to distance himself from Bush, differing, he points out, on Yucca Mountain and embryonic stem cell research.

SPARING REID

Despite her criticisms of the culture of corruption in Congress, Hafen spares her mentor, Reid. The Senate minority leader is the subject of recent ethical questions for using campaign funds to pay Christmas bonuses, as well as a land deal that allowed him to collect a $1.1 million windfall even though he hadn't owned the property for three years.

"They can't be compared (to what the Republicans have done)," says Hafen, who insists she will be independent in Washington.

Hafen won't say if she's ever disagreed with Reid's stances on legislation.

Like Reid, she believes the Bush tax cuts help the rich more than the middle class and so should not be made permanent.

Porter says ending the cuts amounts to a looming tax increase.

MUSIC TO HIS EARS

It is afternoon as Porter, who has played keyboards since elementary school, arrives at Bonnie's Music Shoppe on Bonanza Road. Bonnie Fitch, the owner, is ecstatic that Porter is making a campaign appearance in connection with her 25th anniversary of doing business in Las Vegas. The congressman met Fitch at an educational symposium at UNLV.

"He told the secretary of education that music education could play a big role in keeping kids in school," Fitch recalls.

A member of a bipartisan congressional musical group Second Amendments, Porter plays some Beatles songs as a little boy sings along.

"The congressman says that music is a universal language, that it can help bring world peace," says Porter Chief of Staff Mike Hesse, who listens to him play.