WASHINGTON — Henry Paulson has re-established an unwritten Washington rule that excuses the treasury secretary from campaign work — much to the chagrin of Republicans battling to retain control of Congress.

Mr. Paulson, 60, is adhering to a deal he struck last spring with White House Chief of Staff Joshua Bolten. In order to get the former Goldman Sachs Group Inc. chairman to take the treasury job, Mr. Bolten assured him he wouldn’t have to make election speeches, a person familiar with the negotiations and a former Bush administration official said.

Most recent treasury secretaries, including James Baker, Nicholas Brady, and Robert Rubin, did little campaigning. John Snow, who preceded Mr. Paulson, broke with that precedent during the 2004 presidential campaign, visiting 20 states.

Mr. Paulson’s return to tradition is angering Republicans struggling to defend their majorities on November 7. If Mr. Paulson felt obliged to President Bush and his policies, “he’d be out campaigning for Republicans to keep control of the Senate and the House,” the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, Charles Grassley, said in an interview. “We’re going to have just nothing being done if the Democrats take over.”

Representative Phil Gingrey, a Republican of Georgia, said he hasn’t seen Mr. Paulson “out and about,” adding, “I would like to know why. We are in a war here.”

With Mr. Paulson on the sidelines, Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez and Labor Secretary Elaine Chao have been the most active economic officials stumping for Republican candidates.

“Historically, senior cabinet officials tended to stay aloof from politics because it was viewed as undermining their position in dealing with foreign counterparts,” Bruce Bartlett, who worked at treasury under Mr. Brady in President George H.W. Bush’s administration, said. “Snow in my experience and observation was the exception.”

Democrats need to gain 15 seats to win control of the 435-member House and six to take over the 100-member Senate.

A former treasury economist who teaches international politics at Tufts University in Medford, Mass., Daniel Drezner, said remaining above the fray may actually leave Mr. Paulson in a stronger position to advance Mr. Bush’s agenda after the election.

“If you are seen as having an independent voice, when you back the president, that support is going to count for a lot more,” he said. “If you are seen as a parrot, even if you’re right, your credibility is undercut.”

One of Mr. Paulson’s most delicate tasks will be to nudge China closer to floating its currency, while warding off protectionist legislation aimed at curbing Chinese exports.

In October, Mr. Bush said he would spend his two remaining years in office addressing changes in Social Security and Medicare, with Mr. Paulson leading the efforts. Mr. Paulson has lately been reaching out to lawmakers of both parties on the issues.

“Secretary Mr. Paulson believes it’s best that the treasury secretary not participate in partisan political events,” his spokeswoman in Washington, Brookly McLaughlin, said.

Expecting Mr. Paulson to hit the campaign trail is “not the historical view,” said Stephen Hess, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington.”I would say the more distinguished the treasury secretary, the less likely he is to be an active partisan. When you add up his nonpartisan, non-political background, his newness, I would have been surprised to see Mr. Paulson campaigning.”

In 2000, then-Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers made a November trip to Wisconsin and Illinois to seek last-minute support for Al Gore, the Democratic presidential candidate. Mr. Rubin went to Florida, Louisiana, New York, Massachusetts, and Texas in 1996, when President Clinton sought a second term.

While Mr. Snow was “by no means the first” treasury secretary to help his party in a campaign, he took it to a new level by visiting 14 of 17 swing states during the 2004 campaign, Thomas Mann, who studies American politics at Brookings, said.

Mr. Paulson has visited only two American cities since officially taking over from Mr. Snow on July 10: New York on August 1 and Chicago on August 11.

Mr. Snow declined to comment about his successor, Debbie Grubbs, who is his assistant in Richmond, Va., where now he lives, said.

With less than three weeks before the election, the economy has become the Republicans’ strongest asset, while Democrats seek to exploit voter unhappiness about the Iraq war and Republican scandals in Congress.

Over the past month, responsibility for getting the word out on the economy has mostly fallen to officials such as Mr. Gutierrez, Ms. Chao, and Small Business Administration head Steven Preston, who has visited seven states this month.