AP Photo/The Tyler Morning Telegraph, Sarah A. Miller/AP Rep. Ralph Hall, 91, of Texas has a narrow lead in the polls over John Ratcliffe for the Republican nomination. But this is arguably the toughest race he’s faced in his 34-year congressional career. 
 
 Only two World War II veterans remain in Congress. One is retiring, and the other will learn Tuesday whether he’ll be on the ballot this fall. 
 
 Rep. Ralph Hall, 91, of Texas, is in a tight race against Tea Party favorite John Ratcliffe for the Republican nomination in a Dallas-area district. 
 
 AP Photo/Matt Slocum/ASSOCIATED PRESS Tea Party favorite John Ratcliffe is in a tight race with Rep. Ralph Hall. 
 
 The winner likely will be elected in November, given the district’s Republican registration edge. 
 
 In the late 1970s, more than four out of five members of Congress were veterans. Most of those vets served in World War II. 
 
 Today, there are no World War II vets left in the Senate, and just two in the House: Hall and Rep. John Dingell, a Michigan Democrat who is not seeking reelection. 
 
 Hall is the oldest person ever to serve in the House. 
 
 Polls show he is holding a single-digit lead, but it is arguably the toughest race he’s faced in his 34-year congressional career. ||||| ROCKWALL, Texas (AP) — Congressman Ralph Hall, at 91 the oldest-ever member of the U.S. House, was ousted Tuesday in the Texas Republican runoff by a candidate barely half his age. 
 
 FILE - In this April 11, 2014, file photo, U.S. Rep. Ralph Hall mingles with fellow military veterans at a weekly "Band of Brothers" happy hour he attends nearly every week in his hometown of Rockwall,... (Associated Press) 
 
 Congressman Ralph Hall listens to a voter outside a polling station in Rockwall, Texas, Tuesday, May 27, 2014. The oldest-ever member of the U.S. House faces the toughest test of his political career,... (Associated Press) 
 
 In this April 11, 2014 photo, U.S. Rep. Ralph Hall mingles with fellow military veterans at a weekly "Band of Brothers" happy hour he attends nearly every week in his hometown of Rockwall, Texas. The... (Associated Press) 
 
 Backed by powerful national conservative groups, 48-year-old former U.S. Attorney John Ratcliffe was able to paint Hall as too cozy with the GOP establishment after 34 years in office. He forced the incumbent into his first runoff in 17 terms in the House, then won it decisively. 
 
 "I just got whipped and got beat," Hall told supporters in his hometown of Rockwall, where he once had a brush with notorious outlaws Bonnie and Clyde while working in a pharmacy as a boy. He insisted, though, that he wasn't surprised or sad. 
 
 Ratcliffe relied on modern analytics to better target would-be voters, while Hall used more traditional techniques such as direct mailings and walking cities and towns to chat with voters. At his election party Tuesday night, Hall campaign staffers even wrote county-by-county results on butcher paper tapped to the wall. 
 
 "We really felt optimistic," Ratcliffe said in a phone interview, even before Hall had called to concede. He said he considered himself an underdog until the minute the polls closed. 
 
 Hall first ran for political office in 1950 and won his congressional seat when Jimmy Carter was president. He was a Democrat until switching parties in 2004. 
 
 The only World War II veteran left in Congress seeking re-election, Hall promised that his next term would be his last but said he wanted to remain in office long enough to help the GOP win the White House in 2016. 
 
 No Democrat is running in the district that stretches from suburban Dallas east to Louisiana and north to Oklahoma — meaning Ratcliffe will be headed to Washington after the November general election. 
 
 Anna DiGirolamo, a 19-year-old student at Texas A&M University, was voting for her second time Tuesday at the city hall in Heath, where Ratcliffe was once mayor. She said she researched both candidates by watching some of their commercials on YouTube. 
 
 "He's been here for a long time and he's done good things, but I think it's time for a new opinion," DiGirolamo said of Hall, who didn't open a Twitter account until last year. 
 
 An avid jogger, Hall went skydiving when facing a 2012 primary challenge and had planned to do so twice this year but canceled due to icy conditions. Instead, he made a playful television ad pointing to the wrinkles on his face and calling them scars of congressional fights with liberals. 
 
 Still, even before his defeat was official, Hall called the race "not one of my best ones, that's for sure." 
 
 Asked about voters who stayed home for a runoff featuring light-turnout, he responded: "I don't know what you do to them. You fuss at 'em. But it's a runoff and you can't ever tell." 
 
 In Texas' March primary, Hall won 45 percent of the vote compared to Ratcliffe's nearly 29 percent. No one won a majority in a six-way race, though, so Hall was forced into the first runoff of his congressional career. 
 
 Ratcliffe was supported by the Club for Growth and Senate Conservatives Fund, but Hall won endorsements from tea party favorite Rep. Michelle Bachmann of Minnesota and leading Christian conservative voice and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee. 
 
 Neville Govender, also casting his ballot in Heath, said he had never bothered to vote in a congressional election until this year because he knew Hall would win in a rout. But this time was different. 
 
 "I just believe in what he stands for, his energy," Govender said of Ratcliffe. "I believe we need change." ||||| ROCKWALL, Texas (AP) — When he was a boy and working in a pharmacy in this town east of Dallas, Ralph Hall once sold cigarettes and Coca-Cola to Bonnie and Clyde, the notorious bank robbers who would later die in a hail of lawmen gunfire. 
 
 In this April 11, 2014 photo, U.S. Rep. Ralph Hall mingles with fellow military veterans at a weekly "Band of Brothers" happy hour he attends nearly every week in his hometown of Rockwall, Texas. A 90-year-old... (Associated Press) 
 
 In this April 11, 2014 photo, U.S. Rep. Ralph Hall mingles with fellow military veterans at a weekly "Band of Brothers" happy hour he attends nearly every week in his hometown of Rockwall, Texas. A 90-year-old... (Associated Press) 
 
 In this April 11, 2014 photo, U.S. Rep. Ralph Hall mingles with fellow military veterans at a weekly "Band of Brothers" happy hour he attends nearly every week in his hometown of Rockwall, Texas. A 90-year-old... (Associated Press) 
 
 Now 90 and the oldest-ever member of the U.S. House, Hall is facing a potential political shootout of his own — against a Republican primary challenger barely half his age, backed by national conservative groups and well-schooled in digital- and data-heavy modern campaigning. 
 
 It's shaping up to be a test of whether old-style, face-to-face campaigning can prevail against the new election engineering and organizational techniques that are coming to dominate American politics. Is Hall's vast political experience still an asset or simply proof he's out of touch with today's conservatives? 
 
 "I'm doing the same thing that I've always done," the 17-term incumbent said amid a "Band of Brothers" happy hour at a Rockwall country club. Most Friday afternoons, Hall, who flew Hellcat fighters during World War II, hops a plane from Washington to Texas, then heads straight to the weekly gathering of U.S. military veterans. 
 
 That routine may no longer be enough. Hall's district is safely Republican but he captured just 45 percent of the vote against five challengers in last month's primary, and has been forced into his first runoff since being elected to Congress in 1980. His opponent, 48-year-old former U.S. attorney John Ratcliffe, won 29 percent and has been endorsed by powerful tea-party-aligned organizations, including the Senate Conservatives Fund and the Club for Growth, who see Ratcliffe as the race's only true conservative. 
 
 A former mayor of the town of Heath, Ratcliffe said he knows he's challenging an institution in the district of big-city suburbs and small towns that stretches to the Louisiana and Arkansas borders. 
 
 "I'm running against a guy who has an airport, highway and lake named after him," Ratcliffe said, referring to Rockwall's municipal airport, and a nearby expressway and man-made lake project. 
 
 Hall, who turns 91 before the May 27 runoff, shrugs off tea party suggestions he's a Washington insider. 
 
 "I just tell them, 'Look at my record. I vote with my party when I can. I vote with my district every time," said Hall, who described his campaign strategy as "walking through every courthouse and walking the cities in the district." 
 
 An avid jogger, Hall moves at a brisk pace as he meets passers-by, stopping frequently to chat or hand out pennies fitted with a special silver band bearing his name. He also mails the coins around the district, and when aides tried to scrap the program for something more-modern, they got an earful from supporters wondering about pennies they were used to receiving. 
 
 Known in Congress for promoting NASA and energy production, Hall largely forgoes formal campaign stops, instead attending Republican breakfast gatherings or just encountering voters while out and about. Joe Lynch, 65, says he'll remain a Hall supporter for life after running into him at Wal-Mart. 
 
 "I saw him coming up the aisle by himself just as unassuming as he could be," Lynch said. "His car with House plates was in the parking lot. How many members of Congress do you think actually shop at Wal-Mart?" 
 
 Ratcliffe, by contrast, exploits Web-based advertising and has hired an analytics firm for micro-targeting. 
 
 "We've tried to use that to better define and identify the voters within this district and folks that would be supportive of me," Ratcliffe said. He said he hasn't made Hall's age an issue but, "I put him in a class of career politician that has gone to Washington, stayed too long, promised too much and become part of the problem." 
 
 In 2012, Hall went skydiving two days before the Republican primary. This time, he made a playful television ad calling his wrinkles political battle scars. 
 
 Since the primary, his campaign hired a former Reagan administration media relations director, as well as a veteran of the Republican National Committee chairman's office. 
 
 The congressman recently lent his campaign $100,000, his first personal loan in recent memory. Ratcliffe, meanwhile, has given his campaign about $575,000 and said he's ready to spend more. He's also expecting outside groups to spend enough to shape the race. 
 
 Hall knows his age is an issue. He even referred to a rumor that his congressional office still uses typewriters (it doesn't.) 
 
 But he's not reluctant to describe his brush with Bonnie and Clyde, who Hall remembers from the early 1930s when they "bought two cartons of Old Golds, two Coca-Colas and all the newspapers we had." 
 
 "He was a funny looking little guy. She was acceptable looking," Hall said. "I saw them. But I don't think it's that unusual. They were a lot of places."
– Ralph Hall, already the oldest person ever to serve in the House of Representatives, is seeking a final term but the 91-year-old faces a tough challenge today from a 48-year-old opponent. John Ratcliffe is backed by conservative groups with strong Tea Party ties in the Republican primary runoff and he says he is the stronger conservative, the AP reports. But Hall, who first won his Dallas-area seat in 1980 and switched from Democrat to Republican in 2004, says the younger man is "running against my birth certificate." The contest will be a test of whether Hall's old-school, face-to-face campaigning style can hold up against his opponent's modern, digital, and data-heavy techniques, the AP noted last month. Hall—who once sold cigarettes and Coca-Cola to Bonnie and Clyde when he worked in a pharmacy as a boy—served in the Navy from 1942 to 1945 and if he does prevail, he will be the last World War II veteran in Congress, reports the New York Daily News. There are no veterans of the war still serving in the Senate and the only other World War II vet in the House is Michigan Democrat John Dingell, who is not seeking re-election.