If Street sails to victory, Democrats such as Jarvis Sanders of Overbrook and James Williams of South Philadelphia will have stood by their man on Election Day.

In a city in which registered Democrats outnumber Republicans 4-1, pollsters say the mayor's race is a dead heat. Voters on Tuesday will either choose to maintain Democratic dominance of city politics, or they will install the first Republican mayor in five decades.

To gauge how voters see the race in four key wards - districts in which turnout is expected to be relatively high - The Inquirer interviewed more than 80 people last week. They were informal conversations, not polls. But the results appeared to echo what the polls have shown:

Some of the city's most loyal Democrats, many of them white, are considering voting for Katz.

Many black voters, who are the core of Street's constituency, are backing the Democratic candidate, although not always passionately.

Many Democrats, black and white, entered the final week before the election not sure whom they would support on Tuesday.

The experts have had their say. Let's hear from regular voters.

Elli Flamini is for Katz.

"I'm attracted to the future he describes," she said last week, as she pushed her 10-month-old daughter, Lydia, in a stroller. "He's willing to lower the wage tax, to keep people in the city and he has a perspective on working with the unions; he doesn't have the baggage with the unions that Street has."

Jarvis Sanders, 39, a prison employee who lives on North 68th Street, said he had recently changed his mind about the election.

"Schools are the most important issue to me, and I've always been for school vouchers, which is one of the reasons I liked Katz," Sanders said. "But after listening to John Street [during a recent TV debate], I've begun thinking that we don't need to abandon the public school system, we need to fix it.

"I'm still up and down," Sanders said, "but right now, I'm going for Street."

The 32d Ward

There are no Katz signs tacked onto utility poles or stuck in storefront windows here, but Street's face is easy to find in this ward, which includes the neighborhoods of Strawberry Mansion and Susquehanna. The ward, heavily Democratic and overwhelmingly black, is bounded roughly by 33d Street along Fairmount Park to the west, Broad Street to the east, Susquehanna Avenue on the north, and Montgomery Avenue and Oxford Streets to the south.

It is, by all accounts, Street territory. It is part of the Council district he represented for 19 years. Democrats there helped W. Wilson Goode win in 1983, and then helped him squeak past Frank Rizzo in 1987 in an unexpectedly close contest. The challenge for Street on Tuesday is to make sure his supporters come out, and come out strong.

Of 16 Democrats in the ward who were interviewed, 11 said they would vote for the former City Council president, one said he would vote for Katz and four were undecided.

At 15th and Fontain Streets, near Temple University, Woodrow Harrell and John Brown, both retired machinists, said they would vote Democratic.

"All I have to do is go pull the lever," said Harrell, 82, of the 1400 block of Diamond Street.

"Matter of fact, I don't even know Katz," said Brown, 77, who lives near 15th and Fontain. "I never heard of him until this election. I've been knowing John Street ever since he was selling hot dogs on Broad Street up at Temple," a reference to Street's days as a vendor.

Robert Lyons, 65, a retired steel-company supervisor, said he believed that Street, whom he described as a good councilman, would be an ineffective mayor because he would not command sufficient respect throughout the city.

"It will be just like Wilson Goode," he said. "They'll say: 'You're the mayor, but what you say don't matter.' It will be just a title only."

Katz is the better candidate, he said.

"He's more intelligent and what he's saying, he'll do more of what he's saying," Lyons said.

The Second Ward

In interviews with 30 voters in the ward, the vast majority, including 11 of 15 Democrats, said they would vote for Katz. They cited his promise to build on the city's economic revival of recent years.

At Jim's Steaks on South Street, however, James Williams, 35, shut off the automatic meat slicer and announced: "I'm going to vote for John Street. He worked in the city so long he can't be so bad."

Along Front Street, Dominic Morrone, a construction worker, took his party registration card out of his wallet. "Democrat," it said in the lower right-hand corner.

"I definitely wouldn't vote for Katz because he's Republican, and also, I don't really like him," Morrone said.

Bob Whitcraft weighed Katz's promises against a dose of skepticism as he painted his front door on Seventh Street.

He wasn't sure whom he'd vote for.

"Mr. Street is more realistic, but I hope Mr. Katz can deliver on his promises," said Whitcraft, a registered Republican. "I've seen enough empty promises in my lifetime."

Whitcraft said he was still thinking about his choice. "It'll be interesting to see what Ed comes out with," he said, referring to Mayor Rendell's expected statements supporting Street, whom he has endorsed.

The 34th Ward

This can sound like the land of the undecided.

Overbrook, bordered by 60th Street, Overbrook Avenue, Market Street and City Avenue, was home to about an even number of whites and blacks in 1990. The 2000 Census might show a shift, but the ward remains racially diverse and, for the most part, middle class.

Since Goode's first race, against Republican John Egan in 1983, the vote in the 34th foretold the winner in each succeeding mayoral contest.

More than half of the 30 Democrats interviewed said they had not made up their minds.

These were people such as Steven Scott, 34, of the 800 block of North Wynnewood. He's a black graphics engineer who said neither of the candidates had left a strong impression on the issues that most concern him - taxes, schools and jobs.

"I'm a Democrat, so I'll probably vote for Street," he said, "but I think this is really a no-frills race. There's nothing about either of the candidates that really reaches out and makes people want to get involved or support them."

Thomas Murphy, another North Wynnewood resident, called Katz "another Republican pretending to be compassionate," and said Street had gotten an unfair rap.

"It really comes down to the fact that there's just a lot of people who don't like Street because of some of the histrionic things he's done," said Murphy, who is white.

Still, Murphy said he might be missing from the polls on Election Day. "I don't know if I'm going to vote," he said. Then he paused, and a slight smile crossed his face: "I'm going to be busy that day."

The 65th Ward

Here in the Far Northeast, one would expect to find plenty of support for Sam Katz.

And why not? When the campaign pits a black Democrat against a white Republican, white Democrats tend to cross over in great numbers to support the Republican.

The question for Street here is: Can he hold onto a large enough bloc of Democrats to give him the margin he needs for victory?

Of 14 people interviewed, all white, four were Democrats, and two said they would vote for Street. They included a social worker and Jason Almquist, who said his mother was a Democratic Party official.

"I'm staying Democrat," said Almquist, working behind the counter of Pizzadelphia Pizza on Frankford Avenue. He is 18, and voting for the first time.

Two Democrats said they would vote for Katz. Among them: Marie Burns, 72, grandmother of 12, great-grandmother of one and a retired receptionist.

Burns was quick to point out that her choice had nothing to do with race. How could it be, when she has a biracial granddaughter? But she said she loved Rizzo and wishes he were still around, and now finds Katz to be "a good man."

The owner of Sam's Barber Shop on Frankford Avenue, Salvatore Pizzo, 34, said older customers who come in for haircuts are "talking Katz, Katz, Katz," which is just fine with him.

A registered Republican, he wants to see the shop his grandfather opened in 1958 thrive and the surrounding community rebound.

Dorothy Burke, 54, a former Democrat who recently switched parties, said she had seen her neighborhood deteriorate from the time she moved in 37 years ago. She said she was undecided but was leaning toward Katz.

Burke said her father's house recently sold for $29,000 after a year on the market. It should have gone for more, she said.

"I've had it with Philadelphia," she said. "I see how hard my husband works, and it just doesn't seem fair that we get so little in return."