The Utah congressman has the distinction of being the only Democrat elected to a statewide office. To get there, he has had to convince enough conservative voters to jump off the Grand Old Party. In doing so, he has risked alienating members of his own party.

But it worked. Two years ago, 1-in-5 of Matheson's votes came from Republican voters. To win a third term in Congress, he will have to equal that.

That means Matheson and his Republican opponent, former legislator John Swallow, are vying for some of the same voters. With a month to go until the Nov. 2 election, the campaign is heating up.

A flurry of news releases and campaign debates in recent weeks reveals each candidate's strategy: Matheson is downplaying partisan distinctions and emphasizing his "everyman" appeal. Swallow casts himself as a loyal member of the Bush team.

"This is the campaign ratcheting up," said Kelly Patterson, Brigham Young University political science department chairman. "Rep. Matheson needs some Republican votes to stay in office. John Swallow needs to get those people to return home in order for him to win."

The matchup is a repeat of the 2002 election when Matheson squeaked by Swallow with 1,600 votes, proving he could win in a district that had been redrawn by the GOP Legislature to dilute the Democratic stronghold of Salt Lake City.

Since that win, Matheson has been in southern Utah almost as often as he has been in Salt Lake City. Earlier this month, he opened a field office in St. George.

His efforts to woo voters throughout the district seem to have worked. Analysts at the Washington, D.C.-based Cook Report pulled the race out of the "tossup" category and concluded the overwhelmingly Republican district was leaning toward Matheson. And a Salt Lake Tribune poll shows Matheson leading Swallow by 25 percentage points.

Matheson says his unusual mix of votes on everything from taxes to environmental issues appeals to a broad spectrum of Utah voters.

"I'm trying to reach out to everybody, not just a Republican or Democratic audience," he said. "I don't go back to Washington and play follow the leader."

Swallow is undaunted.

Depending on President Bush's coattails, Swallow essentially has been running against Matheson since before he defeated Republican challenger Tim Bridgewater in the June primary. He repeats his talking points over and over, arguing that Matheson, as a minority Democrat in the U.S. House, is ineffectual and out of touch with Utahns.

A series of news releases issued by Swallow's campaign reveal the intensity of the fight for conservative voters. In a sort of back-handed endorsement of Matheson's proposed legislation to block nuclear testing, Swallow insists he would have been able to push the bill through faster as a member of the majority Republicans. Following the Bush campaign's example, Swallow also attempts to label Matheson a "flip-flopper" on taxes. And Swallow alleges that Matheson's acceptance of bundled campaign donations from the "ultra-liberal" Council for a Livable World, a group that supports nuclear disarmament, undermines his opponent's claims of support for the U.S. military. Swallow has coined his own nickname for Matheson, "Jumpin' Jim."

Swallow argues all of his news releases are legitimate critiques of Matheson's record in Congress - on energy, taxes, abortion, education and land use issues.

"He's a congressman and he's responsible to the people of Utah for how he votes," Swallow said. "I can't expect that Jim Matheson will tell people in Utah the negative positions he takes. We're going to talk about how he votes. Voters have to be informed somehow."

Matheson says Swallow, getting desperate because of the gap in the polls, is simply falling into familiar negative campaigning tactics. Matheson says Swallow's questioning his conservative position on tax cuts and support for the military in a time of war are "hollow charges." And, he notes, Swallow has accepted bundled donations from the Club for Growth, whose members advocate eliminating the U.S. Departments of Education, Agriculture and Commerce.

"I'm disappointed. But I'm not surprised," Matheson said. "He's done this in previous campaigns. He's decided to campaign based on misstatements and inaccuracies."

If Matheson's countercharge that Swallow is mucking up the race sticks, it could turn off some of those all-important Republican voters. After Swallow's particularly heated Republican primary with Bridgewater, Salt Lake City resident Diana Grant said she would not vote for the GOP candidate - for the second election in a row.

"Two years ago, I, like thousands of other Republicans, crossed the aisle and voted for Jim Matheson," Grant wrote in a letter to the editor in June. "This time, Swallow enters the general election with his integrity so compromised it will be difficult for him to recover. It's better to have a Democrat who delivers a positive message and tells the truth than a Republican who does not."