With President Obama out of the country, Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. stepped out on the campaign trail over the past two days with stops in Nevada and Arizona to raise funds and rally support for local Democrats.

And the Connecticut Democratic party announced Monday that he will attend a luncheon in support of embattled Sen. Christopher J. Dodd, D-Conn. Dec. 11, signaling a new level of intensity in the vice president's party-building efforts that have already seen him visit, by his count, 54 House districts this year.

Biden's made appearances Sunday and Monday with vulnerable Reps. Dina Titus, D-Nev., Ann Kirkpatrick, D-Ariz.., and Harry Mitchell, D-Ariz., all of whom face competitive races in states that have been particularly hard hit by the housing crisis and economic recession.

According to a report by the Pew Center on the States released last week, Arizona ranked second and Nevada fifth among states in the most "fiscal peril" in 2009. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., won Kirkpatrick's 1st District and Mitchell's 5th District in the 2008 presidential race, while Obama snared Titus' 3rd District.

Four out of every five House members who didn't side with their party on the health care bill represent districts that voted for the opposite party's presidential nominee in the 2008 election.

The party-buckers on the 220-215 vote on Saturday night included 39 Democrats who voted against the bill. Of them, 31 represent districts that voted for John McCain over Barack Obama. Republicans are targeting many of them for defeat in the 2010 election. Of the other eight, three are serving their first terms in districts in which they defeated or succeeded Republicans in the 2008 election.

Eighteen Democrats from McCain-voting districts backed the bill. Among this subset, seven-term Rep. Marion Berry of Arkansas represents the most pro-McCain district (59 percent). He's more politically secure than other "McCain Democrats" who voted for the bill, including first-term Rep. Tom Perriello of Virginia and second-term Rep. Zack Space of Ohio.

Virginia Republican Rep. Eric Cantor, the House Minority Whip and one of the GOP's most potent fundraisers, used his leadership PAC last month to donate mostly to Republican candidates who are challenging Democratic incumbents in the 2010 election.

Cantor's organization, known as Every Republican Is Crucial (ERIC) PAC, reported Monday that it donated $2,500 apiece to five GOP challengers about whom the congressman and other national party officials are bullish.

They are Andy Harris of Maryland, a state senator challenging Rep. Frank Kratovil Jr. in a rematch of their close 2008 race in the 1st District; Martha Roby of Alabama, a Montgomery city councilwoman who is taking on Rep. Bobby Bright in the 2nd District; Steve Pearce of New Mexico, a former House member who lost a Senate race in 2008 and is seeking to reclaim his old 2nd District seat, now held by Rep. Harry Teague; Steve Stivers of Ohio, who is waging a rematch campaign against Rep. Mary Jo Kilroy in the Columbus-area 15th District; and Van Tran of California, an assemblyman who is taking on Rep. Loretta Sanchez in the 47th District.

Rep. Pete Sessions, R-Texas, and the National Republican Congressional Committee are going all in to help former Rep. Steve Pearce take back New Mexico's 2nd District.

The NRCC, which is bullish about Pearce's prospects of unseating freshman Democrat Harry Teague, gave Pearce $5,000 in the second quarter and Sessions chipped in another $5,000 from his political action committee and $2,000 from his personal campaign committee, helping push the Republican past $500,000 for the period.

Pearce raised $452,000 from individuals and another $55,000 from PACs and party committees to reach that huge total. Other House Republicans, including Minority Leader John A. Boehner of Ohio, Lamar Smith of Texas, Spencer Bachus of Alabama, John Kline of Minnesota and John L. Mica of Florida, also chipped in to Pearce's campaign.

Colorado Rep. Jared Polis has a lot of fundraising clout for a guy with a mere seven months of House service.

The Jared Polis Victory Fund, a joint fundraising committee the wealthy freshman congressman organized in May, donated $139,500 in late June to 31 Democratic campaign committees, according to a filing Friday with the Federal Election Commission.

The largest chunk of funds, $30,000, went to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, the campaign arm of House Democrats that will be defending the party's 256-178 majority in the 2010 elections.

New Mexico Republican Steve Pearce will attempt to reclaim the U.S. House seat he used to hold.

Pearce on Monday announced that he will challenge Democratic Rep. Harry Teague, who was elected last November to represent the state's 2nd District, a 69,000-square-mile expanse of southern New Mexico that takes in Las Cruces and Roswell.

It's not a rematch.

The campaign arm of Republicans in the U.S. House is using this week's legislative recess to criticize some Democrats who backed a climate change bill the House narrowly passed last week.

The National Republican Congressional Committee's advertising campaign consists mainly of low-cost radio advertisements and telephone calls against 14 Democrats, most of them from conservative-leaning districts, who helped provide the winning 219-212 margin in the June 26 vote. Eight Republicans also backed the climate change bill, which most Republicans described as a massive "national energy tax" on consumers.

A top target of the NRCC campaign is first-term Virginia Rep. Tom Perriello, who broke with most politically vulnerable Democratic freshmen in backing the bill. The NRCC is airing a television ad in Perriello's south-central Virginia district that urges viewers to "tell him he was wrong to vote for the [Speaker Nancy] Pelosi energy tax."

New Mexico Republicans have been anticipating an announcement by Steve Pearce, their defeated 2008 U.S. Senate nominee, about whether he will seek a comeback in 2010 -- either by running for governor in the race to succeed term-limited Democrat Bill Richardson, or by trying to reclaim the 2nd Congressional District seat, now occupied by freshman Democrat Harry Teague, that he left open in 2008 after three terms.

But the GOP will have to wait a bit longer than Pearce initially indicated. After earlier saying he would reveal a decision by the end of June, Pearce told CQ Politics Friday that he is still weighing his 2010 plans and will withhold his announcement until sometime between July 20 and July 27.

Pearce in 2008 edged then-Rep. Heather A. Wilson for the Republican nomination for the Senate seat opened up by the retirement of six-term GOP incumbent Pete V. Domenici. But Democrat Tom Udall, then the state's other U.S. House member, trounced Pearce in the general election by 61 percent to 39 percent.

New Mexico Republicans, who had a terrible election year in 2008, were especially stung by their loss of the southern 2nd Congressional District, a longtime Republican stronghold that was captured by Democrat Harry Teague.

Now district Republican activists are waiting to hear whether ex-Rep. Steve Pearce -- the losing Republican nominee in the 2008 U.S. Senate race -- will seek a political comeback by trying to reclaim his old 2nd District House seat.

Pearce, who first won the 2nd District seat in 2002 and held it for six years, says they won't have to wait much longer. He told CQ Politics in a phone interview Friday that he is likely to have an announcement by the end of this month about what, if any, 2010 political plans he has.