The New York Times – CHICAGO — It was a Saturday morning and Representative Jesse L. Jackson Jr.of Illinois was dashing from news conference to news conference, racking up new political endorsements for the list he has been flaunting here lately. By the end of the day he had squeezed in a speech at an education conference, held a get-out-the-vote rally and made an appearance at an event for a candidate running for the State Legislature.

His frenetic schedule would be routine for many politicians in an election year, but it is less so for Mr. Jackson, whose campaigns have often seemed more like a formality than a fight.

Mr. Jackson, the son of the civil rights leader, has been re-elected to Congress eight times with minimal effort. Even in 2010, after news of an extramarital affair and questions about whether he was involved in an attempt to buy the Senate seat vacated by Barack Obama, Mr. Jackson walloped his general election opponent — winning more than 80 percent of the votes in the Second Congressional District of Illinois, which includes the South Side of Chicago, an African-American enclave.

Yet this year, as Mr. Jackson faces his first substantial challenger, Debbie Halvorson, a former United States representative, since taking office, he is putting unprecedented effort into the Democratic primary on Tuesday.

It is not that people expect him to lose — Mr. Jackson led in both candidates’ most recent internal polls, made public by the campaigns — it is simply that few here have seen him work this hard at wooing voters in a long time, if ever.

Seeking to reinvigorate a political career that seems to have lost momentum despite his comfortable victories, Mr. Jackson recently hired a new public relations firm. He is running television and radio ads, and has met with a local newspaper editorial board, which he passed up last election. He has opened campaign offices, tapped donors nationwide and recruited some 3,000 local volunteers to work phone banks and register new voters, according to his campaign.

“He’s trying to show another spurt of his ability in the community, but for some of us it’s a little too late because people are looking for something fresh and somebody they can count on,” said Bishop Larry D. Trotter, the pastor of Sweet Holy Spirit Church, who has backed Mr. Jackson in every previous election but decided to now endorse Ms. Halvorson for the Democratic nomination.

In a district that has long been a Democratic stronghold, whoever wins the party nomination is expected to be the heavy favorite against a Republican challenger here in November.

Mr. Jackson has been considered a rising political star since he first ran for the seat in 1995 with the help of his father, the Rev. Jesse Jackson, who twice ran for president.

But his reputation has been scuffed in recent years after news broke about a secret relationship that he had with a woman from Washington and after allegations that he may have been involved in a scheme to buy the Senate seat Mr. Obama held before he left for the White House. After the 2008 arrest of Gov. Rod R. Blagojevich, who was later convicted on 18 counts of corruption, reports emerged claiming that Mr. Jackson instructed a fund-raiser to offer Mr. Blagojevich campaign contributions in exchange for the Senate appointment.

Mr. Jackson, who is still under investigation by the House Ethics Committee over whether he broke House rules while seeking the seat, was never charged with a crime and has denied any wrongdoing. He has called the reported extramarital affair a personal matter, but his campaign officials said last week that he did not deny it.

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