By Claire Leavitt, CQ Staff

“When you ask Nick about our space program, he lights up like a kid on Christmas morning,” Rep. Nick Lampson of Texas’ campaign biography declares. “He understands what the [Johnson] space center means to our local economy.” Lampson and his fellow House Democrats are hoping his devotion to local issues will help the congressman retain the 22nd District seat he won in 2006 after former House majority leader Tom DeLay resigned in disgrace. But there are certainly no guarantees here: the district gave 64 percent of its vote to George W. Bush in 2004.

Lampson represented Texas’ 9th district for four consecutive terms before DeLay-orchestrated 2003 gerrymandering led to Lampson’s resounding 2004 defeat to Republican Ted Poe . In 2006, Lampson squeaked by with 52 percent of the vote in his new district, the 22nd, against write-in candidate Shelley Sekula-Gibbs (the Republican ballot remained vacant after DeLay’s resignation).

This time around, Lampson faces Navy veteran Pete Olson, who’s running on a strict conservative platform and calling Lampson “the biggest spender in Congress.”

The race, which CQ Politics rates as No Clear Favorite, is one of the Republicans’ handful of chances to “reclaim” seats they lost in the 2006 Democratic sweep. The district is expected to overwhelmingly back John McCain for president, and a victory would validate Lampson’s claims that he is not “too liberal” for his district and that his 2006 win wasn’t a DeLay-inspired fluke.

The Olson campaign says: just look at the record. “[Lampson’s] got a 10-year voting record, [and it’s] way too liberal,” campaign spokeswoman Amy Goldstein declared. “He’s tacked more to the right since Pete Olson became the nominee.”

CQ rates Lampson’s “party unity” – how often a member toes the line of his party’s leadership – as 77 percent for 2007 and just 56 percent for 2008, compared to an average score of 85 percent during his first eight years in Congress. Lampson spokesman Trevor Kincaid maintains the partisan warfare stoked by DeLay and the former House Republican leadership is responsible for the apparent shift.

Calling Lampson one of the most moderate voices in the House, Kincaid points to Lampson’s recent endorsements from the National Rifle Association, the Veterans of Foreign Wars, and the Texas Farm Bureau. “I mean, these are fiscally to socially conservative groups,” Kincaid said. The VFW rarely endorses members of Congress who do not sit on defense and veterans’ affairs committees, making its endorsement of Lampson particularly noteworthy.

But Olson is pushing his conservative credentials, saying in his first TV spot that only a congressman with “conservative principles” can reign in government excess. He’s anti-abortion and pro-“traditional marriage.” He is, as he announced at the candidates’ debate, “fundamentally against universal health care” and supports extending President Bush’s tax cuts. He describes himself as a “smaller government” conservative and says he would have opposed the $700 billion financial bailout package Congress passed in early October.

Lampson voted “no” on the bailout twice, saying the bill “forces the average taxpayer to pay for a crisis that they did not create.” The Olson campaign charges that Lampson voted for authorizing the Treasury department’s credit assistance to mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac “when nobody was watching,” then flipped “for political reasons” when it came time to weigh in on the higher-profile rescue. (The Fannie/Freddie provision was part of a larger housing package, and Lampson’s vote was to approve the entire bill.)

Despite the bailout’s few weeks in the spotlight, a district that’s home to the Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center will always place a premium on NASA. And Lampson is very much aware of that: he’s called for increased commitment to human spaceflight and warned of foreign efforts to surpass the U.S.’s current prominence in space technology. He’s a member of the House Science Subcommittee on Space and Aeronautics and is slated to become Chairman next year. He touts the 2008 passage of the NASA Authorization Act - and the procurement of its $3 billion increase from President Bush’s original fiscal 2009 request – as a particularly impressive achievement.

The Olson campaign fires back that Lampson’s support for NASA funding increases is a canard, given his vote for the sweeping fiscal 2007 continuing budget resolution, which continued to fund the government at 2006 levels. The National Republican Congressional Committee claims in an ad that “Lampson voted for legislation that would cut the NASA budget” by $545 million, referring to the continuing resolution, which “is what counts,” according to the campaign. Lampson does not sit on the House Appropriations committee and did not have a role in crafting the resolution.

Meanwhile, the Democrat-affiliated Lone Star Project PAC has accused Olson of illegally voting in an August 12, 2003 Connecticut special election, while registered in Virginia. Olson’s parents live in Connecticut, and their address served as Olson’s permanent residence during his Navy service. The Olson campaign claims it can prove the candidate wasn’t in Connecticut on the day in question, and explains Olson’s “vote” as a polling-booth error. In any case, campaign spokeswoman Amy Goldstein said, “Pete’s not focused on it,” while Lampson spokesman Trevor Kincaid emphasized the Olson camp’s “four different stories about his whereabouts” on the day in question. “He’s obviously lying about something,” Kincaid said.

Further jeopardizing Olson’s chances is the NRCC’s early October decision to slash its TV-ad budget for the race in half, from approximately $1.5 million to around $600,000. Lampson has maintained a fundraising advantage throughout the race – he ended September with approximately $1.2 million in the bank versus $469,000 for Olson – and spokesman Trevor Kincaid said the cutback shows the NRCC has realized “Olson can’t win.” Nonetheless, the Olson camp is optimistic. In an election year that predicts big Democratic gains, Olson’s a potential star in the increasingly bleak GOP sky.