It's 10 a.m., and the Johnson Matthey parking lot is roasting under a relentless sun.

Yet US Rep. Jim Gerlach, buttoned up in a black suit, is crouching near the pavement, struggling to hold a white handkerchief to the rumbling exhaust pipe of a just-buffed school bus.

It's not an easy photo-op, but Mr. Gerlach smiles gamely.

On a lazy August morning in a nonelection year, most House incumbents - 99 percent of whom get reelected - are enjoying vacation. But here he is, 446 days before the vote, shaking hands and showing off a local company's clean-diesel technology.

Welcome to one of the last competitive congressional districts left in America. Neither Republican red nor Democratic blue, this deep-purple swatch of southeastern Pennsylvania will host one of next year's hottest contests - and the politicking never ends.

"This district is in many ways a bellwether" for the 2006 mid-term election, says Amy Walter, who analyzes House races for the Cook Political Report, in Washington. Simply put, Republicans need to keep this seat; Democrats need to take it.

Not since Gettysburg has Pennsylvania been so crucial to the balance of power in a "house divided."

The Sixth Congressional District was carved with Gerlach, a former state senator, in mind. Its boundary lines, consequently, are as gerrymandered as a six-year-old's Etch-A-Sketch doodle. But that hasn't made things easy for him.

"I have to work a little harder [than my colleagues]," he says, noting that Al Gore and John Kerry beat President Bush here.

Interviews with voters along Route 30, which spans the district's southern edge, suggest Gerlach - and his fellow Republicans - may have to work even harder to win another term.

Many East-coasters want to know when the real-estate bubble will pop. Folks in Coatesville, a steel-mill town 40 miles west of Philadelphia, want to know when it will float their way. A three-bedroom house here can be had for $57,000.

This is the Sixth's western fringe, too far to commute to Philly, too close to be Amish country. It's also one of the region's poorest areas, with sizable black and Latino communities, and residents have economic development on their minds.

Indeed, as private developers work to seize the town's historic buildings, the most politically charged two words in Coatesville aren't Iraq war, stem cells, or gay marriage, but eminent domain.

After a long discourse about the issue, John Ross and Jeff Deacon, who run The Religious Bookshoppe, explain their shifting views on national politics.

"I'm a lifelong Republican," says Mr. Ross, amid an art-deco interior where they hope to add a cafe. "But for the first time in my life, I can imagine voting Democrat." Mr. Deacon, too, has soured on Mr. Bush. Both cite frustration with the war in Iraq.

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