IT'S NOON ON SATURDAY, and city council candidate Charles Lewis is rallying his troops: A dozen of them are milling about in his campaign office on NE Killingsworth and Williams, snacking on doughnuts and cooing over Lewis' new baby daughter.

"We've got two good candidates in the race right now," Lewis says after he gets their attention. He's referring to his opponent, Amanda Fritz, who earned more than three times as many votes as Lewis did in the May primary.

"How we can take it over the top is what we're doing today and what we've been doing over the summer with smaller groups," Lewis explained. "Going door to door, knocking and talking and getting the word out."

Campaign staffers hand out clipboards and flyers detailing Lewis' "Experience and Dedication," and on that Saturday, September 20, the volunteers hit the streets.

Lewis is clearly the underdog in this campaign. "That's definitely the case," he acknowledged as he briskly trotted from door to door along N Haight a few minutes later.

Fritz—a nurse and neighborhood activist who ran two years earlier and lost against incumbent Dan Saltzman—earned nearly 43 percent of the vote in the May primary, to Lewis' 12.66 percent. The last time a second-place primary finisher came out on top in the final election was just four years ago, when Sam Adams was more than 10 points behind Nick Fish in May, but won by nearly four points in November (Fish finally won a seat on the council this past May).

Adams, however, wasn't nearly as far behind as Lewis. He didn't face a spending cap, either: Lewis and Fritz are both publicly financed, which limits them to spending $200,000 each in the general election. They've been hitting nearly all of the same neighborhood festivals and parades, but beyond that, Lewis' campaign has been under the radar this summer.

Lewis doesn't seem too worried, though. He's paid a little more than $20,000 so far to a San Diego-based pollster, who quizzed voters several weeks ago. Lewis shared some of the results with his volunteers on Saturday.

"What we found out is when people know both stories—exactly how our opponent tells her story, and our story—they vote for us," Lewis explained. "So it's really critical that people know what our backgrounds are." For Lewis, that's founding the music nonprofit Ethos, and owning a small business (the Portland Duck Tours) for several years—issues that dovetail, he says, with voter priorities. "Education is huge, the economy is huge," he explains. And, he points out, "no one on city council has run a business."

He also stressed his business experience on Friday, September 19, at a City Club debate between the two candidates. "My decade of work as both a nonprofit executive director and a business owner has given me the background and experience I believe we need on the Portland City Council. Experience including meeting a payroll, managing employees, and living within a budget—all combined with a dedication to public service and progressive values." Later, when he had a chance to ask Fritz a question, he focused again on management experience—or, rather, whether she had any that would prepare her to run city bureaus.

"It is something I've done," Lewis said, noting Ethos' near-million dollar budget and 78 employees. "That's the size of many of our bureaus."