KALAMAZOO, Mich. — Fred Upton was first elected to represent the Kalamazoo area in Congress in 1986, when Ronald Reagan was president and almost nobody was online.

For many years afterward, the re-election of Mr. Upton, a Republican, was close to automatic. Democrats would nominate some hopeless challenger who would be blown away on Election Day.

This was partly because, as a young professional in his district once said, “everybody likes Fred.” The 61-year-old congressman — who encourages just about everyone to call him Fred — has an engaging personality. For much of his career in the House, he was seen as moderate and bipartisan on many issues.

Nor did it hurt that he was an independently wealthy heir to part of the Whirlpool fortune, and a favorite of business executives. Campaign fund-raising was never a problem.

Yet this year, something different is happening in Mr. Upton’s district, which includes six counties tucked into Michigan’s southwest corner. The powerful chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee is facing his most seriously contested election ever.

“Fred Upton is out of touch with this district,” Paul Clements, the 53-year-old Democratic nominee, told me last week. “I think I could do a better job on the issues that matter most to people.”

Those issues are, he said, bringing more high-tech manufacturing to the district, making higher education more affordable, and protecting the environment.

Tom Wilbur, the congressman’s campaign manager, said the idea that Mr. Clements can do more in those areas than Mr. Upton is absurd.

“The citizens of this district know that Fred is able to get the job done,” Mr. Wilbur said. “Our opponent frankly doesn’t know what it takes to create jobs, and frankly doesn’t have the experience.”

Mr. Clements is a professor of political science at Western Michigan University and an expert on international development. He grew up in Hong Kong and India. He has been a Peace Corps volunteer and a consultant to both the U.S. government and the United Nations.

But even if his domestic policy credentials are sketchy, there still are signs that Mr. Upton’s hold on voters may be slipping. Two years ago, his Democratic challenger was Mike O’Brien, a manager of an office furniture company. Mr. Upton outspent him, $4 million to $294,000.

Yet when the votes were counted, Mr. Upton won with 55 percent, the smallest margin of his career. He carried Kalamazoo County, the district’s largest county, by only eight votes.

Mr. Clements, who flirted with running two years ago, announced within weeks that he would challenge Mr. Upton this time. That may have seemed like a dubious decision. Midterm races are always harder for Democrats, because their voters are harder to turn out.

Yet there are signs that Mr. Clements is connecting. Two weeks ago, Tom McDonald, the challenger’s campaign manager, told me he had raised almost $700,000, far more than any Upton challenger has before.

Then, the Clements campaign got astonishingly good news. Mayday, a political action committee created by Harvard University professor Lawrence Lessig, announced it was pouring $1.5 million into the race for TV ads designed to defeat Mr. Upton.

Mayday, which is funded by thousands of small donors, is attacking Mr. Upton for accepting money from special-interest groups, and for voting against a bill designed to allow the federal government to negotiate prescription drug prices for Medicare and Affordable Care Act patients.

Still, it is hard to find anybody outside the Clements inner circle who thinks Mr. Upton will lose. The Detroit Free Press did not bother to mention the race when it endorsed U.S. House candidates. The congressman’s staff dismisses the Mayday money as “an attempt by an out-of-town, out-of-touch eastern liberal group to confuse senior citizens.”

Even if Mr. Clements loses, however, the size of the margin may matter. Forty-two years ago, a brash young Democrat named Bob Carr took on another GOP incumbent in a Lansing district, in what turned out to be a very Republican year.

Mr. Carr lost, but he made it surprisingly close. Two years later, the incumbent decided to retire. Mr. Carr ran again, won, and spent two decades in Congress.

Mr. Clements said he would be open to the possibility of another run if a Carr-like scenario emerges. Sometimes races below the media radar can be the most interesting ones.

Jack Lessenberry, a member of the journalism faculty at Wayne State University in Detroit and The Blade’s ombudsman, writes on issues and people in Michigan.

Contact him at: omblade@aol.com

First Published October 24, 2014, 4:00 a.m.