Scalise, 42, has about $211,000 in campaign cash on hand and $192,000 in debt as he faces another election for a full term in the fall, according to campaign finance reports.

The 1st Congressional District in suburban New Orleans has voted solidly Republican for decades. But St. Tammany Parish businessman Jim Harlan, 56, an independent-turned-Democrat, thinks Scalise's financial situation makes him vulnerable.

"Scalise is dead in the water," Joel Coon, Harlan's campaign manager, said recently.