Republican Steve King faces his strongest challenge since his election to Iowa's 5th Congressional District six years ago, his campaign and his Democratic challenger agree.

But whether Council Bluffs Democrat Rob Hubler's two years of campaigning and a shift in registered voters toward Democrats can make the GOP-heavy district competitive remains a question with a month until Election Day.

King, an outspoken social and economic conservative from Kiron, acknowledges his late-summer foreign travel and Congress' recent extended work on an economic rescue package has kept him from traveling the large western Iowa district as much as he would like.

"I've been relatively low-key, partly because there's so much going on out here," King, a three-term House member, said in a recent telephone interview from Washington, D.C.

Meanwhile, Hubler, a retired Presbyterian minister and longtime Democratic activist, has six campaign offices across the 32-county district. He hired national Democratic strategist Joe Trippi's consulting firm and has been pushing his party's campaign leadership in Washington, D.C., to loosen the purse strings for his race.

"The district looks at alternatives when there are alternatives presented. There hasn't been a Democratic candidate that really has put a campaign on the ground and raised some money," Hubler said. "This is a real campaign."

King has only one campaign office, in Early, and his campaign staff is very small. It consists of his son Jeff, one full-time field organizer and the contract help of a Sac County consulting firm.

Still, King has raised far more in financial contributions for his campaign than Hubler.

Hubler was expected to report this month having raised roughly $200,000 through the third quarter of 2008. King had raised roughly $650,000 as of June.

It was unclear how much King had raised through September. Reports for money raised through September are due this month.

King and Hubler agree the economy, immigration and Iraq are the top issues facing the district, although they hold opposite positions on them.

King voted against both Wall Street rescue measures in the House, while Hubler said he would have supported a bailout.

King has been a leading backer of the construction of a fence along the U.S. border with Mexico and deporting the millions of illegal immigrants in the country.

Hubler supports imposing penalties on illegal immigrants as part of a path to citizenship that would not require mass deportation.

A Des Moines Register Iowa Poll in February 2007 showed a slim majority of Iowans supported allowing illegal immigrants to remain in the country if they had jobs.

A slightly larger proportion supported that position in the 5th District.

King, who traveled to Iraq in August, has also been a strong proponent of the war and the troop "surge" that began last year. "We should be feeling really good about the progress we've made there," he said.

Hubler, who supports withdrawing troops from Iraq, has said King "finds himself on the wrong side of the Iraq war."

The voter profile of the district has become somewhat more Democratic since the last presidential election, although the GOP still dominates.

Since 2004, the numbers of Republicans and voters registered with neither party have declined, while Democrats' numbers have grown.

Even so, Republicans outnumber Democrats by more than 44,000 and represent almost 40 percent of the district's voters.

"You throw on top of that everything that's happening at light speed in terms of the economy and gas prices and you really end up with a district that is at a tipping point," Hubler said.

King attributed the shift in voter registration to the all-out battle for the Democratic presidential caucuses in Iowa and nominee Barack Obama's victory in the leadoff nominating contest in January.

"It's going to be hard to beat him in Iowa, and he may have some coattails that help him in some congressional and Statehouse races. But the offset to that will be the skirt-tails of Sarah Palin," he added, referring to the GOP vice presidential nominee.

Sac County Republican Chairwoman Ann Trimble Ray said Hubler represents more of a threat to King than his past opponents. In 2002, King won with 62 percent of the vote. In 2004, he won with 63 percent and in 2006 with 57 percent.

"We still feel our base is strong and, although the Republican advantage may have shrunk, it's still significant," said Trimble Ray, whose company Heartland Marketing Group is King's consulting firm.

For example, registered Republicans outnumbered Democrats in Sioux County last month by more than 7-to-1. But Democratic registration there has grown 20 percent since 2004.

"I think there are enough people who are upset with King, that if they are talking to their neighbors, it could change the votes," said former Sioux County Democratic Chairman Carl Vandermeulen.