After a bitter primary race, most victorious candidates move back to the center.

State Senate Minority Leader Dina Titus withstood the challenge of a well-moneyed opponent by proving her Democratic bona fides in last month's gubernatorial primary. Now you're just as likely to hear her stress her work to cap property taxes or encourage economic redevelopment in conservative, rural Nevada.

But the bruising Republican primary in the 2nd Congressional District seems to have had the opposite effect on GOP nominee Dean Heller. The secretary of state isn't returning to his moderate leanings after besting ultra-conservative Assemblywoman Sharron Angle in a three-way race.

Because the GOP enjoys a 50,000-voter registration edge in the massive district, he's toeing a line most Republicans are running from.

In New Jersey, where voters haven't sent a Republican to the Senate in decades, the GOP has a chance this year with Tom Kean Jr., the son of a popular former governor who is putting so much distance between himself and the White House that he didn't show up when Dick Cheney came to the Garden State to raise money for him.

Heller's quite different, welcoming the White House and taking the somewhat risky general election stance of running to the right of Bush. If he had been in Congress, Heller said last week, he would have supported the initial House bill on immigration -- the one many Republicans, including the president, have found too stringent.

He also accepted the White House's offer to stump for him in Reno on Yom Kippur without worrying about having to atone for Bush's problems. Heller, who spent $1 million to win his primary, needs Bush's help to boost his campaign coffers. Many voters in the district are getting to know Democrat Jill Derby, thanks to her aggressive ad buy and clever television spots. Voters know about her roots, her family's ranch and her vision for change.

They just don't know -- at least from the commercials -- that Derby's a Democrat. The regent is running so brilliantly to the middle that her independence is what voters will remember most, at least for now.

Heller, on the other hand, has foregone his past tendency to run the same way. At a candidate forum earlier this year, when he had to square off against Angle and former Assemblywoman Dawn Gibbons, he said he didn't favor a fence along the border. In interviews he liked to talk up Arizona Sen. John McCain as a role model. Now he supports a fence (at least in populated areas) and thinks McCain has gone astray.

"I'm not happy with his position on torture," Heller said during a meeting with the Review-Journal's editorial board last week. "I'm so mad at those three, McCain, Warner and Graham." McCain, Virginia Sen. John Warner and South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham led Republican opposition to Bush's policy on interrogating terrorism suspects. Former Secretary of State Colin Powell joined in as the Senate Armed Services Committee rebuffed Bush.

"I think they're far more concerned with protecting terrorists," Heller said of the Republicans who opposed the president's plan. Senate Republicans subsequently announced they had reached a compromise with Bush.

Heller said that while it's "tough to be a Republican these days," he believes the 2nd District's rural and northern voters are independent and will view him as a Republican independent of those in Washington who have such low approval ratings.

It's not a strategy he would try in Nevada's 3rd Congressional District, where political stablemate Jon Porter is, thus far, casting himself as independent and trying to destroy Democratic challenger Tessa Hafen before she makes too much headway.

Porter's and Heller's campaigns are both being handled by Mike Slanker's November Inc. Slanker, a Bush Ranger, isn't afraid of the president's approval rating. Bush came to Nevada earlier this year to raise money for Porter. Now, with the election six weeks away, the cash is in the bank and Bush's popularity may have risen just enough to make the gamble worth it.

Besides, Porter is retreading his successful strategy of 2002 and 2004: paint his opponent as corrupt. His ad criticizing Democrat Tessa Hafen begins with a shadowy picture of Tom Gallagher, the man Porter dispatched easily two years ago. I'm surprised Porter didn't also use Dario Herrera's image.

Hafen, on the other hand, is painting Porter as beholden to House Republicans and Bush. One of her ads prominently features a picture of a beaming Porter with the president.

In the 3rd District, where Republicans and Democrats are in a statistical registration tie, Hafen's strategy is right on the money. The only way she can get independent voters to swing her way is to brand Porter as a rubber stamp for unpopular Republicans. Porter can't run from that, which is why you see him avoiding the issue completely.

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In my Sept. 19 column, I incorrectly reported that that the U.S. Chess Federation sued Stan Vaughan, a District 7 candidate for the state Assembly. Vaughan was the plaintiff in the case.

Erin Neff's column runs Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday. She can be reached at 387-2906, or by e-mail at eneff@reviewjournal.com.