Five months ago, sitting on a slightly worn couch in a hotel lobby in Reading, Pa., Rep. Jim Gerlach said his re-election race would go down to the wire. "It's gonna be very, very close," said the two-term congressman. "The war will probably be the biggest issue." His prediction seems to have been right on target.

Republican Rep. Jim Gerlach donated the $1,000 he received from Rep. Mark Foley's leadership political action committee to Crime Victims Center of Chester County and also canceled a fundraiser with House Majority Leader John Boehner this week.

A new poll shows Democratic challenger Lois Murphy with a slight advantage over incumbent Rep. Jim Gerlach of Pennsylvania in a race heralded as one of the closest in the country. The poll was based on interviews with about 1,000 residents of the suburban Philadelphia district and showed Murphy with a 5-point lead.

Lois Murphy has been hitting Rep. Jim Gerlach on the issue of Medicare and the new prescription drug plan. "It was written by the Republican Congress and the drug companies, and the people deserve better than that," Murphy told U.S. News in an interview earlier this summer. In a series of town hall events and meeting with seniors this month, she's been taking that message to voters.

Rep. Jim Gerlach will pick up a key endorsement Monday, when the National Education Association plans to announce its support for the incumbent congressman, U.S. News has learned. In 2004, the NEA backed Democratic challenger Lois Murphy, whose father was a public school superintendent.