Guest post from former Boston Phoenix writer Michael Freedberg, who blogs at Here and Sphere.

Of all the State Representative districts wholly within one Massachusetts city, only one is held by a Republican. The city is Peabody; the Republican is Leah Cole.

Cole was the winner of a three-way 12th Essex District special election held in early 2013, occasioned by the death of long-time Representative Joyce Spiliotis.

The three candidates split almost evenly the roughly 5,500 votes cast.

Only 233 votes separated the winning Cole from the third place finisher.

And Cole edged out second place finisher Beverly Griffin Dunne by a mere 73 votes.

Griffin Dunne is running again, having defeated James "Demo" Moutsoulas in the Democratic Primary by 2,625 to 1,838.

Democratic primary voters outnumbered Cole's Republican primary voters by about five to one.

Given the history of the District, Griffin Dunne, an 11-year member of Peabody's School Committee, would seem the easy favorite. But is she?

I’m not so sure.

Cole had a bit more than $17,000 in the bank as of her last Office of Campaign Finance Report.

Griffin Dunne had not quite $3,000.

For her special election win, Cole raised a total of $37,094; Griffin Dunne's entire receipts since the beginning of that race don't equal even half of Cole's special election receipts.

Cole's donors run the gamut of Republican interests. Though she began her special election run as a Ron Paul fan, holding so-called "Liberty" positions on most issues -- but extreme social conservative positions as well; more of that later -- Cole has since brought onto her team pretty much the entire "establishment" GOP that the Paul people and "socons' oppose. Her donors include long-time state committee member Jeanne Kangas, a social moderate; Chanel Prunier, doyenne of the anti-marriage equality "socons"; pro-choice State Committee member Nancy Luther; Paul Craney and Rick Green, helmsmen of the Koch Brother-ish Mass Fiscal alliance; the City of Peabody PMP; City Councillor Ann Manning-Martin; and even a member of Peabody's usually Democratic Vontzalides Family. 

Charlie Baker, too, anted up $300 for Cole early this year, as did civil rights progressive (and former US Senate candidate) Dan Winslow.

That Cole has gathered to her side Republicans of almost all viewpoints could not have been predicted. Running in 2013, she told Peabody Patch that she favored privatizing the state's public transit system: not exactly a mainstream view -- even for rejectionist Republicans. A group that calls itself "Catholic League" distributed a pro-Cole flier in the 2013 GOP primary (which Cole won by about 50 votes) claiming that she favored repealing Massachusetts's transgender rights law. The "Catholic League" has been known to claim views for its preferred candidates that the candidates do not actually hold; but its claim for Cole acquired some credence when she held a big fundraiser at Capone's, a dance bar cited only a year before by Peabody's licensing Board for barring transgender people from entering.

But that was then. Since that time, Cole has earned high marks for hard work -- every Cole supporter I have talked to says that she's the hardest working GOP representative. Though she has placed herself solidly with the GOP's fiscal conservative camp -- opposing the Minimum-Wage raise enacted by the House and leading the signature-gathering edefort that placed Gas Tax Indexing Repeal on the November ballot -- she has made sure to partner with other, more senior members. 

In Griffin Dunne, Cole faces a challenger who is her dyed in the wool opposite. Griffin Dunne passionately opposes raising the charter school cap -- a GOP priority. Dunne asserts that charter schools compete unfairly with public schools -- "they don't play by the rules," says she -- and siphon off the school system's most involved parents too. Griffin Dunne supports Martha Coakley for Governor; cites the mistakes made by the Weld administration in the closing of Danvers State hospital (some 23 years ago) for which she can "never" accept Charlie Baker.

A lifelong Peabody resident, Griffin Dunne lives in Ward 2 of Peabody, (streets around and near the former Eastman Gelatin plant) and has what looks like solid support in her home base. She also has gained, recently, the support of the man she defeated in September, "Demo" Moutsoulas: whose support is well worth having, because he dominates ward 3 (the Greek and Portuguese "East End") as strongly as Griffin Dunne commands Ward 2.

Griffin Dunne also says that she's knocked on 4500 doors -- 5000 by election day.

It may not be enough. Cole has lawn signs well distributed through the District (except in Moutsoulas's ward, where few signs have appeared for either candidate so far) and in some stores along Main and Walnut Streets. And Cole, who lived far at the Lynnfield end of the District last year, has now moved into an East End apartment not far from St. Vasilios church, a Greek Orthodox parish as communally active as any I have seen in decades.

Cole will need plenty of Vasilios parishioners, and lots of Portuguese votes as well, if she's to win, but she has political opinion on her side. 30 years ago Peabody as a reliably Democratic-voting city; today it votes at least ten points more Republican than the state as a whole. Though the 12th Essex leaves out the most Republican part of the city, Scott Brown carried its precincts handily in 2010, and Charlie Baker is likely to win them by even more this time. One sees in the District almost no visible effort for any Democrat except Griffin Dunne. Republicans, on the other hand, are mounting a very visible campaign for Baker, Congressional candidate Rich Tisei, and Leah Cole. Griffin Dunne has her work cut out or her.