It is not clear, however, when or where she has been meeting the people of Delaware, at least since the primary. She has canceled a series of public events and television interviews and has barely been seen in public, though she re-emerged Friday at an opening for her campaign headquarters in Wilmington.

Ms. O’Donnell has faced charges this week that she lied about her educational record  a claim on two online business networking sites that she had attended Oxford University when in fact she participated in a summer program from the Phoenix Institute, which was housed at the elite British university. “I was never dishonest about my education,” she said. “Whether someone put it there to call me a liar, whatever.”

Ms. O’Donnell was joined Thursday by her oldest sister, Jennie, a lesbian who seems unbothered by Christine’s past statements about homosexuals (they have an “identity disorder,” she said in 2006) and has moved temporarily from Los Angeles to help on the campaign. “Blood is thicker than politics,” explained Jennie, a self-described expert in the “healing arts.”

Supporters of Ms. O’Donnell, who is single and describes herself as “currently taking applications for a husband,” say her ability to discuss her “faith journey” is central to what could make her a compelling new voice for social conservatism. “She has a real gift for personal presentation,” said Colin Hanna, the president of Let Freedom Ring, a conservative public policy nonprofit. It is grounded, he said, “in the ease in which she gives her personal testimony.”

She grew up in a tightknit Roman Catholic family in Moorestown, N.J., and describes her early political philosophy as “liberal” and “I am woman, hear me roar.” She attended Fairleigh Dickinson University in New Jersey, planned to become an actress and had a series of romantic relationships. “I by no means was a slut,” she said. “But by no means did I have the moral code I have now.”

The formative experience came when Ms. O’Donnell was about 21 (“probably in the first of my three senior years”). She had reflexively argued for abortion rights until a friend pointed her to graphic photos and descriptions of the procedure in medical journals. Ms. O’Donnell read them with horror. “When you’re confronted with such a hard reality of being so wrong, it takes a while to accept that,” she said. “I started asking what else I was wrong about.” The episode “awakened the activist in me,” she said.