“Here’s the problem,” Mr. Schilling said. Colleagues in highly Republican districts “put up bills that make them look tough back home,” he said, “and that makes for tough votes.”

He recalled another freshman lawmaker, from a safe district in Indiana, who criticized him for “voting like a Democrat.” “I said, ‘I’ve got to vote my district, thank you very much!’ ” said Mr. Schilling, who punctuates most of his sentences with a blinding smile, a hearty laugh and “Oh, my goodness!”

Nice try, local Democrats say. “He is out of step with the district,” said Steve Brown, a spokesman for the Democratic Party of Illinois. “I don’t know what he puts forth to voters that would make them retain him.” Mr. Brown said Mr. Schilling’s challenger, Cheri Bustos, a onetime alderwoman from East Moline and former baby sitter to Mr. Durbin’s children, would return the district to the Democrats.

In recent months, in part to curry favor with crucial independent voters who wish for more comity in Congress, some freshmen in closely contested districts have worked to be more bipartisan. They have spoken out against their party’s bill for long-term transportation funding and voted for measures that they had originally campaigned against.

“When it came to the debt ceiling vote, I once said, ‘Oh, I’d never do one of those,’ ” Mr. Schilling said. “But when you came down to the reality of what would happen if we didn’t, and I talked to local businesses about that,” the need to vote yes became clear, he said.

At a series of public stops on Monday, he bragged repeatedly about his work with Representative Dave Loebsack, Democrat of Iowa, to pester Illinois for money to fix the aforementioned bridge, which links their states and districts.

But Mr. Schilling and other Republicans, perhaps believing that their message will be embraced by swing voters worried about the budget deficit, still dish out plenty of tough talk against Democratic lawmakers and President Obama.