Richard Neal

It all has amounted to a surprisingly strong challenge to Neal, 77, an institution in the region and an influential Washington lawmaker poised to wield more power if the Democrats gain the House majority in November. There is no Republican candidate in the general election.

In one roughly 24-hour period at the end of last week, Whalen chatted up a restaurant owner in Wilbraham, raced into traffic in downtown Ludlow to greet a driver who called out to him, spoke at a campaign fund-raising art auction in Pittsfield (the big draw: a giant knitted blanket of Bernie Sanders), greeted people before a Holyoke town hall hosted by Senator Ed Markey, then donned a Jamaican flag like a cape to attend Springfield’s annual Caribbean parade and carnival.

“This is what he does. He runs around,” April Grudgen Whalen said, watching her husband bounce among carnival-goers after dancing and high-fiving his way along the 2-mile parade route. “He’s like a cat.”

Since launching his campaign last year, Whalen said his goal has been to go everywhere in the district. He and his distinctive vehicle — license plate VANANA — are in the process of hitting all of its 83 municipalities at least twice.

“I was told that I had to sit in a room for six to eight hours a day and call high-dollar donors. I said, [expletive] that. I’m going to go to six to eight events a day,” he told The Boston Globe. “This is a race. And I feel very confident about this race.”

But Neal also is confident he’ll withstand his first Democratic primary challenge since 2020, when he defeated then-Holyoke Mayor Alex Morse by about 17 percentage points. The stakes are particularly high for Neal, who is poised to regain the chairmanship of the tax-writing Ways and Means Committee if the Democrats win the House in November — unless he sustains a stunning primary loss.

Neal touts the clout that comes from nearly four decades in Washington, highlighting federal money he’s helped secure for a part of the state where residents often feel overlooked. The projects range from a new fire truck for the Berkshires town of Charlemont to the ambitious East-West rail initiative to enhance passenger service between Boston and Western Massachusetts.

“It’s a reminder of what has been a career that’s been marked by accomplishment upon accomplishment upon accomplishment,” Neal told the Globe of his campaign pitch, also citing major bills he helped shepherd through Congress, like the $1.9 trillion pandemic relief legislation. “As I‘ve said many, many times, I’d put my record up against anybody in the House of Representatives, with the exception of Nancy Pelosi — and she was speaker.”

The race is a contrast between “very, very, very different candidates,” said Tony Cignoli, a Democratic strategist based in Western Massachusetts. He called Whalen a better communicator and more formidable challenger than Morse, with a “very active” base of progressive supporters.

“There’s some energy here, there really is,” Cignoli said, “and Neal’s not taking it lightly.”

Whalen, who lives in South Hadley, trumpets all his interactions on social media. Neal operates largely offline, Cignoli said, showing up at the wake for a constituent’s parent or working the room for three hours when Springfield swore in its first Latino fire commissioner on Aug. 3.

“Neal’s team, they know the traditional way of getting out the vote,” he said. “Now, what a lot of us political observers are watching for is: Can Whalen’s team take those all those volunteers and actually turn that into getting out the vote?”

Despite the old school vs. new school dynamic and a yawning age gap, Whalen is not making a generational change argument. That bucks a trend in which some Democratic primary challengers nationwide this year — including Salem Representative Seth Moulton in his race against Markey — have made age a central issue.

Whalen said his campaign is about calling for progressive policies that Neal doesn’t support, such as Medicare For All, while branding him as an out-of-touch politician who accepts corporate political action committee money. Plus, Whalen believes the contrast is obvious.

“There’s a reverse shot of a 39-year-old with a tan and a 77-year-old in a suit,” he predicts about their upcoming televised debate next Tuesday, their only one of the campaign. “You don’t need to make it about age. It’s already there.”

Whalen said he was motivated to run after he had to explain to his diverse students at Northampton High School why Donald Trump had won the 2024 presidential election and learned how jaded they were about politics.

“In 2016, I had to stare my students in the face and essentially say, ‘This isn’t how the world is supposed to work .’ . . . and we got a lot of calls from home thanking me and students reaching out,” Whalen said. “Flash forward to 2024 . . . I say that same thing, ‘This isn’t normal. I’ve got your back. We’re going to get through this.’ And the students could not have given any less care.”

The nation’s political system is broken, Whalen said, and he’s running to try to fix it. Part of that involves rejecting corporate money and connecting with residents all around the district.

“He’ll talk to everybody. You’ve got a question for him, he’ll answer it,” said Russell Freedman, 79, of Lanesborough, after he helped label artwork for Whalen’s Pittsfield fund-raiser. “He’s been to Pittsfield more times in the last month than Richie [Neal] has in this decade.”

As the state coordinator for the Progressive Democrats of America, Freedman said he was attracted to Whalen because of his approach and his positions, including supporting Medicare for All. The group endorsed Whalen as it did Morse in 2020. But Freedman said Whalen is generating much more energy.

Still, there is a huge fund-raising disparity. The most recent Federal Election Commission filings show Whalen raised $336,000 and had about $40,000 in cash on hand as of Aug. 12. Neal raised nearly $2.3 million and had $4.1 million in cash on hand as of June 30, including money from previous campaigns.

Whalen’s campaign is spending about $50,000 on TV ads, roughly one-quarter of what Neal is spending. Whalen also has billboards declaring “Trust the man in the yellow van,” in Springfield and Pittsfield.

“If we add zero dollars as of right now, we’re good,” Whalen said on Friday. But he added it’s not all about the money, noting his team has delivered 1,400 lawn signs, sent out over 20,000 postcards and knocked on thousands of doors.

Neal’s supporters said they don’t want to give up his seniority as the longest-serving House member in Massachusetts. State Representative Tricia Farley-Bouvier, a Pittsfield Democrat, said the East-West rail project in particular is too important to entrust to a freshman lawmaker.

“He’s been an outstanding partner for me when it comes to constituent services,” she said of Neal before Markey’s unrelated town hall in Holyoke Saturday morning. “When it comes to joint projects that we do for Pittsfield and the Berkshires, he and his team are very present.”

Darlene Morse, 58, of West Springfield, said Neal deserved another term because he has consistently delivered.

“Granted, he’s getting on in age, but he’s got the relationships already,” she said at the town hall. “He’s done a great job at fighting for Western Mass., when Massachusetts gets seen as Boston, Boston, Boston.”

The L-shaped district stretches from west of Worcester along the Connecticut border, then up through the Berkshires. It has progressives pockets, like Easthampton, although liberal bastions Northampton and Amherst are just outside its borders. The largest voting bloc lives in Hampden County, which is anchored by Springfield, and Cignoli said that’s Neal’s stronghold as a longtime resident and former mayor.

But it was Whalen working the crowd at Springfield’s Caribbean Carnival and Parade last Saturday, with Neal’s presence limited to a couple lawn signs near the park entrance. Betty Ross, 75, from Chicopee, stopped by Whalen’s booth to get an English-language campaign flyer after his team had run out of them during the parade and handed out Spanish ones.

Despite voting for Neal in the past, Ross said she was inching toward Whalen as she makes her final decision.

“I just believe in new blood, new ideas,” she said, “new ways of doing things.”