LAWRENCE, Mass. — It’s a dreary day in this aging industrial city, and James Ogonowski, dressed in a crisp blue suit, stands in front of a granite memorial dedicated to members of the local fire department.

“The issues of national safety and government readiness are central to my candidacy. I want to talk about broader reform in Washington,” Mr. Ogonowski, a retired Air Force lieutenant colonel who is running for Congress, said.

Mr. Ogonowski, the brother of John Ogonowski, the pilot of the first plane to strike the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, American Airlines Flight 11, and a Vietnam War veteran, knows firsthand about the consequences of terrorism. His family name has become synonymous with the struggle against terrorism in this pocket of Massachusetts, which lost many citizens on two flights that day. Now Mr. Ogonowski is working to become the first Republican elected to the House of Representatives from Massachusetts in more than a decade.

Mr. Ogonowski is running to replace Rep. Martin Meehan in the state’s 5th Congressional District in a special election to be held October 16. Mr. Meehan, an advocate of campaign finance legislation, resigned from Congress to become the chancellor of the University of Massachusetts’s Lowell campus. Mr. Ogonowski is seeking to build on considerable name recognition after a nominal primary to defeat one of a bevy of Democrats competing for the party’s nomination in a September 4 primary. They include the wife of a deceased senator and presidential candidate, Paul Tsongas, Nikki Tsongas; state Reps. Barry Finegold of Andover, James Eldridge of Acton, and James Miceli of Wilmington; and a Lowell city councilor, Eileen Donoghue.

Mr. Ogonowski’s candidacy could be a bellwether for what traction, if any, Republican candidates have at a time when the popularity of President Bush is so low, particularly in the Northeast. His campaign raised $168,000 in the financial quarter ending June 30, a lesser tally than that of the Democratic candidates for the office but better than expected.

As a candidate, Mr. Ogonowski places the struggle against terrorism front and center. His campaign material declares that no issue is “more challenging to America’s future than the global war on terror.” But he is also positioning himself as an anti-Washington outsider aiming to reform the system. “I’m not a career politician,” he said.

That message, coupled with his strong local roots and fiscal conservatism — he supports Americans for Tax Reform’s stand against tax increases — has local political observers giving Mr. Ogonowski a chance in the closest thing Massachusetts has to a swing district.

While any Republican candidate for federal office faces an uphill battle in the commonwealth, Mr. Ogonowski and his supporters contend that his campaign could be successful. The 5th Congressional District voted for three previous Republican candidates for governor — Mitt Romney, Paul Cellucci, and William Weld — and has 50% more independent voters than Democrats.

“People here like candidates who are independent-minded,” Frank Cousins, a Republican who has endorsed Mr. Ogonowski and the sheriff of Essex County, which comprises part of the district, said.

“I think Jim Ogonowski is the best candidate we’ve had as a Republican for Congress since Peter Blute and Peter Torkildsen were members of Congress in 1996,” a Republican consultant in Massachusetts, Charles Manning, said.

Part of Mr. Ogonowski’s message is border enforcement. During his speech at the Lawrence Fire Department’s headquarters, Mr. Ogonowski made the immigration issue a focus. “Congress has failed to pass tougher border security measures,” he said, citing the immigration status of the alleged perpetrators of the Fort Dix, N.J., terrorist plot and a criminal ring that attempted to smuggle Iraqis into America. “I believe true immigration reform and border security does not include amnesty for illegal immigration. Our nation’s border security and immigration system is broken, and leaving our borders unprotected threatens our national security. Doing nothing is the worst form of amnesty.”

Although he has a strong position on undocumented immigration, a major plank of Mr. Ogonowski’s campaign is his support of legal immigrants, specifically the Merrimack Valley’s large community of refugees from the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia. In nearby Dracut, he helps run the farm his brother started, and he has continued a tradition John Ogonowski began: allowing local Cambodian farmers to farm plots on the property.

After the press conference, James Ogonowski headed over to the Lawrence farmers market, where Visoth Kim, wearing a black “USA” baseball cap emblazoned with a flag and an eagle, was selling fresh lettuce, chives, and cilantro grown on the farm. Mr. Kim, who came to America in 1981 after fleeing Cambodia on foot to Thailand, called Mr. Ogonowski “my best friend.” Mr. Kim said he is supporting Mr. Ogonowski’s candidacy, as are other members of his community.

After leaving Mr. Kim, Mr. Ogonowski spoke of America’s obligation in Iraq. One of Mr. Kim’s friends, he said, was in the Killing Fields and still has scars from his mistreatment at the hands of the communist Khmer Rouge.

Mr. Ogonowski likened the Cambodian’s story to what could happen in Iraq. “If we leave today, there’d be ethnic cleansing over there,” he said. “There’d be multiple millions killed. I don’t think the American people want to be responsible for that.”