DALLAS, Nov. 1 (UPI) -- Democrat Rep. Martin Frost and Republican Rep. Pete Sessions campaigned hard Monday in Dallas in the final hours of one of the nation's most expensive congressional races.
Sessions was on radio talk shows, talking the issues, working to get his supporters out on Election Day. Frost, a 13-term veteran, was meeting with his supporters, urging them to get out their people and thanking them for their support.
The 32nd District race and four other Texas congressional contests have drawn national attention because Republicans drew the new districts to elect more GOP members to Congress and solidify their hold on the U.S. House.
Most experts believe Republicans will maintain their grip on the House, but the outcome of the Texas races will determine how much they extend their control. They hope to take all five seats from Democrats.
The Frost-Sessions race, which has attracted more than $8 million in campaign contributions, is one of the most expensive congressional races in U.S. history. There has been no shortage of aggressive campaigning and negative ads on both sides.
Sessions, an four-term veteran, is running in a district, largely within Dallas, that was drawn to favor the election of a Republican, but it also includes southern neighborhoods of Hispanic voters who have been represented by Frost for years.
In the only poll, conducted early last month for the Dallas Morning News, Sessions led Frost 50 percent to 44 percent, but it sampled only a fraction of the Hispanic vote, which is 36 percent of the district's population.
Sessions, whose wife is Hispanic, has campaigned for the Latino vote, as has Frost, with Spanish-language commercials and campaign literature. Former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Henry Cisneros has also worked for the Democrat.
Sessions was scheduled to get a high-profile, get-out-the-vote boost late Monday night when President George W. Bush stopped at Southern Methodist University in Dallas for his final campaign rally with Sessions and other Texas Republicans.
Bush, a former Texas governor and Dallas resident, made the same kind of late-night swing through Dallas in 2002, and local Republicans said he boosted turnout. Early voting in Dallas has already eclipsed previous records, partly due to the interest stirred up by the 32nd District race.
"The president and I are very good friends, and I'm very proud of what the president has done," Sessions said Monday. "I'm a 98-percent supporter, one of the highest, if not the highest, member of Congress that supports my president. Martin Frost is one of the lowest at 28 percent."
Frost, who describes himself as moderate, frequently notes that he has supported Bush on a number of issues, including the war in Iraq, and has include pictures of Bush in his campaign literature, which has irritated GOP campaign officials.
On the eve of the election, Sessions said he was proud of his campaign because it delivered his message.
"The voter has a sense that I am the pro-business candidate, that I want to work to ensure that we reduce abusive lawsuits, that we lower taxes, and we change the tax code to ensure that we're competing on a global basis," he said.
Sessions was confident of victory.
"We expect, based on numbers that we have seen, that we will not lose any sleep," he said. "We are going to win going away. We think it will be a substantial victory."
Frost was also working to get out the vote. He met with a firefighters group that had supported him and called a number of major donors to thank them for their support, said Justin Kitsch, the Frost campaign spokesman.
"In this last day he's taking this opportunity to thank his supporters and to remind them to get out as many people as possible to vote," he said. "He's still working hard."
In his campaign, Frost has emphasized what he has done during a 26-year career to bring jobs to the Dallas region. He also reminds voters that he led efforts last year to mediate American Airlines' talks with unions to avoid a bankruptcy. American is the largest employer in the region.
In the other four districts, Democrats are also in tough battles for survival.
Democrat Rep. Chet Edwards of Waco has the best chance of defeating Republican state Rep. Arlene Wohlgemuth in the new 17th District in central Texas, most observers believe.
In West Texas there is another incumbent matchup, but Republican Rep. Randy Neugebauer, a freshman, had a 13-point lead over veteran Democratic Rep. Charles Stenholm in a poll released last Friday by a Texas Tech University political science class.
In northeast Texas, Democratic Rep. Max Sandlin faces a stiff challenge from Republican Louis Gohmert. In southeast Texas, Democratic Rep. Nick Lampson is trying to fight off Republican Ted Poe, a well-known former judge in the Houston area.
The hard-fought congressional races have been partly responsible for record early voting in some of Texas' largest counties. Texas is not a battleground state in the presidential race this year, but Bush is popular in the Republican state and his supporters usually turn out.
More than 2.4 million Texans have already voted in the state's 15 largest counties, which is about 30 percent of the registered voters in those counties. This year's early voting was a 58-percent increase over the 2000 election, when Bush was elected president.
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