Her mission: Defeat incumbent Republican Congressman Richard Pombo, a man who doesn’t even represent her. Her beat: Mountain House, a new housing destination drawing young families from Hayward to San Jose – a place where two-thirds of residents were not registered to vote as of September.

“Whoever is congressman here is making decisions for all of us,” said Blumenkrantz, 62, a retired schoolteacher. “We’ve been able to let people know that there’s an alternative.”

Pombo has won re-election handily since taking office 14 years ago. But in the past five years, the Republican lead among registered voters has slipped in his district, thanks to a flood of liberal-leaning families leaving the Bay Area to buy more affordable homes in exurbs such as Tracy. Since 2001, Republicans have dropped from 47 to 43 percent of registered voters, while Democrats dropped just one point to 37 percent. Almost all the growth in registration has been among independent voters, who have increased from 11 to 16 percent.

Still, Democratic challenger Jerry McNerney faces tough odds. According to a report from the Public Policy Institute of California, voters across the state tend to be whiter, older and more conservative than the general population, much like Pombo’s voter base. But the report also found that growing ranks of independent voters present incumbents with “a more critical and less approving electorate.”

“Independent voters are more open-minded on issues and less likely to have preconceived inclinations one way or another,” said Max Neiman, a senior fellow at the policy institute. “There’s no doubt that the increasing number of independents that have come into the Tracy region have made it more competitive than in the past.”

As a result, District 11 has become fertile ground for special interest groups on both sides of the race to try to sway the independents.

Democratic volunteer in Tracy, Janice Blumenkrantz, 62, canvases door-to-door to defeat Republican incumbent Richard Pombo.

On a recent Sunday, a group of East Bay canvassers gathered at the home of McNerney’s Tracy field organizer, Martha Gamez, and prepared to walk local precincts to do just that. Some worried about residents asking where they were from.

“If they do, I’m not saying Berkeley,” said canvasser Anna Berger.

“In all my time, no one has ever asked,” Gamez responded.

From his record as a party-line voter, to his connections to convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff, Pombo has been a lightning rod for criticism from the left, including groups he has battled as chair of the House Resources Committee. The Sierra Club and Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund have together spent more than $329,000 against the incumbent. Over the last few months, hundreds of environmentalists and animal rights activists from outside the district have arrived by the busload to campaign against Pombo’s record on clean air, clean water, offshore drilling and endangered species.

“If you live on this planet, you live in Pombo’s district,” Gamez said.

With support from environmentalists and Democratic politicians, McNerney, a wind energy consultant, has tightened the race. Pombo crushed McNerney with 61 percent of the vote when the political novice ran against him in 2004. But several polls now show the race as a dead heat.

It’s a surprising position for a candidate who wasn’t the first choice of Democrats. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, which initially backed McNerney’s challenger in the June primary, only recently added him to its “Red to Blue” fundraising campaign for competitive races. But since then, the committee has given $55,000 to McNerney and spent $61,000 on anti-Pombo campaigning.

Pombo supporters have responded with ads, mailings, and YouTube videos ordering Berkeleyites out of Pombo country.

The Pombo campaign is no stranger to outside help. The National Republican Congressional Committee has spent $629,000 against McNerney, and money from political committees and businesses across the country has deepened Pombo’s $3.8 million war chest, which the incumbent has used to pay for advertising and precinct walkers. McNerney’s $1.6 million campaign has relied on volunteer canvassing.

“We’re not paying anyone a cent to be here,” said Eden James, a McNerney campaign field director, noting that the campaign has not recruited the outside canvassers.

Teri Gerritz, also a retired schoolteacher from Berkeley, got a ride to Tracy in Blumenkrantz’s hybrid Toyota Prius. In her afternoon of canvassing, no one inquired if the fast-talking woman dressed head-to-toe in black was local or not. Nor did it seem to matter – she registered almost a dozen Democrats in just three hours.

“It doesn’t make a difference where they’re from, as long as they’re asking you to vote,” said Robert Schwarz, 67, an auto-parts auctioneer who moved to Tracy in March with his daughter’s family. A self-described procrastinator and registered Democrat, he hadn’t yet changed his voter registration from his former Fremont address.

If Gerritz hadn’t stopped by and waited for him to fill out his form, he said, “I probably wouldn’t have gotten around to it until the next election.”