While press and pundits focus almost ad nauseum on what will happen Tuesday in New York's 23rd Congressional District, as well as the gubernatorial races in New Jersey and Virginia, everyone has forgotten the battle being waged for the California congressional seat vacated by Ellen Tauscher when she resigned to become a member of President Obama's State Department.

To be sure, the 10th Congressional District of the Golden State is a Democratic stronghold, especially after some recent gerrymandering.

The latest poll shows Democratic candidate and current Lt. Gov. John Garamendi with a commanding 10-point lead over Republican challenger David Harmer, which is certainly not surprising in a district with 18 percent more registered Democrats than Republicans.

But Tuesday's Wall Street Journal opened the door for a possible upset in the making:

Mr. Harmer said internal polling showed him behind by only 2 percentage points. A lower turnout could benefit him, because political scientists say larger electorates tend to be more liberal.

Sure, every candidate's internal polling paints a rosier picture than reality.

However, as the Journal noted, this could all be about turnout, and Republicans are typically quite good at that in off-year elections.

As Harmer's campaign manager Michael Caporusso told me in an exclusive interview Tuesday, "The level of excitement we're seeing is absolutely extraordinary, especially from independent voters who make up 20 percent of the district."

According to Caporusso, as a result of the groundswell of enthusiasm from people who have never participated in politics before, the Harmer campaign has 250 volunteers to poll-watch the district's 147 voting stations.

To be sure, both sides know there's a lot a stake, for as the San Francisco Chronicle reported Monday, whoever wins could be in office for a very long time:

Only two California incumbents seeking re-election have lost a general election in the past decade, and the average California House member is serving a seventh term. Bay Area members have even more longevity, with the average member now serving a 16th year.

Knocking off an incumbent is rare in the region.

Which makes this battle far more interesting than any others taking place Tuesday.

After all, will it really be a shock if a conservative wins in conservative upstate New York? Or if Virginia, which almost always goes opposite whichever party is in the White House, does it again with Bob McDonnell?

And given New Jersey's high unemployment and income tax rates, how surprising will it be if Jon Corzine isn't re-elected?

By contrast, if the underdog Harmer, in a Democratic district in the highly liberal state of California, can pull out this upset, the ground will be shaking from coast to coast.

Noel Sheppard is the Associate Editor of the Media Research Center's NewsBusters.org. He welcomes feedback at nsheppard@newsbusters.org.