Incumbent Republican Rep. Dan Lungren held a narrow lead Tuesday evening over Democrat Bill Durston in the Sacramento-area 3rd Congressional District, and Republican Tom McClintock and Democrat Charlie Brown were virtually deadlocked in the neighboring 4th District.

In early voting returns, Lungren led Durston by 49 percent to 45 percent, with more than half of precincts reporting in the 3rd District.

McClintock had barely more than half the votes and Brown was just below 50 percent in the 4th District, with almost 5 percent of precincts reporting.

The two districts, both traditional Republican strongholds, produced intense campaigns. Each featured a Democratic military veteran vs. a non-veteran Republican who accused his rival of failing to support American troops.

In the 4th District, Charlie Brown, a retired Air Force lieutenant colonel who narrowly lost to Rep. John Doolittle two years ago, ran on a theme of "patriotism before partisanship." He championed veterans issues by donating 5 percent of campaign contributions to local veterans organizations.

Brown, a decorated combat veteran who flew rescue helicopters in the Vietnam War, touted his family's military resume, including his wife's service as an Air Force nurse and his son's Air Force tours in Iraq. But he was critical of the Iraq war.

McClintock, a state senator from Thousand Oaks, vowed to protect the district's legacy as a conservative Republican seat. He campaigned for oil drilling and against gay marriage while assailing Brown for opposing the troop surge in Iraq, supporting anti-war protests and "engaging in some of the most radical activities in our region."

Brown mocked McClintock as a do-nothing, "obstructionist" career politician running for a job 400 miles from his termed-out Senate seat.

While Brown supported Congress' $700 billion economic package to rescue the nation's capital markets, McClintock called it anti-free market and a waste of tax dollars.

In the 3rd District, Lungren faced a feisty challenge from Durston, a Sacramento emergency room physician and liberal who ran to the left of Democratic standard-bearer Barack Obama.

Durston blasted the bailout as bad economic medicine that "rewarded corporate greed" and "took the interests of Wall Street above Main Street." Lungren said he voted for the rescue package after protections were added for taxpayers because it was necessary to avert a "disastrous potential for economic collapse."

Two years ago, Lungren defeated Durston handily. This time the contest generated surprise attention as Democratic registration increased and Durston aggressively attacked the incumbent in a colorful series of campaign advertisements.

He lambasted Lungren as a sellout to corporate interests by running a commercial with tropical music and poolside video of Lungren in swimming trunks at the Hapuna Beach Prince Resort in Hawaii. Lungren attended an aviation industry conference and held a campaign fundraiser there.

Durston also videotaped Lungren at town hall meeting and ran ads portraying the incumbent as bragging about accepting oil company contributions and appearing to speak down to constituents.

The Lungren camp complained bitterly that his remarks were edited out of context and seized upon Durston's own comments in opposing funding for U.S. troops to attack him as anti-military.

Durston fired back, saying: "While I was fighting in the jungles of Vietnam, Lungren was sitting out the war on a medical draft deferment, serving as chair of youth for Nixon."

Lungren erupted in anger when Durston seemed to raise questions that Lungren's father, President Nixon's former physician, had something to do with him not going to war. He said he was declared medically unfit for combat when Lyndon Johnson was president and accused Durston of "McCarthyism on the left."