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A feisty Christine O'Donnell attacked her Democratic opponent but also stumbled in Wednesday's debate with Chris Coons in their election battle for Delaware's U.S. Senate seat held for nearly four decades by Vice President Joe Biden.

Now trailing badly according to the latest polls, she appeared nervous at the start but quickly went on the attack, accusing Coons of raising taxes and offering a "rubber stamp" to Obama administration policies if elected.

At other times, her attacks were less precise and drew scorn from Coons, such as when she said the influence of a Marxist college professor on Coons' political beliefs should "send chills up the spine of every Delaware voter."

"If it were accurate, if it were true, I'd agree," Coons responded. "It's not accurate and it's not true."

He emphasized his experience as New Castle County executive but also attacked O'Donnell, calling some of her positions extreme and accusing her of lying about his record in campaign messaging.

"Most of them are untrue," Coons said of claims about him on her campaign website. "Some of them are just flat-out lies, some of them are mischaracterizations, some of them are just factually untrue."

Coons said he supports abortion rights and embryonic stem cell research while opposing the ban on openly gay and lesbian soldiers from military service, and he backed most Obama administration policies, with a few refinements.

O'Donnell backed Republican positions such as calling for tax cuts and spending cuts to balance the budget, and she repeatedly said tough social issues such as abortion rights and teaching creation theory in public schools should be state or local issues instead of federal decisions. When pressed on a comment from more than decade ago when she questioned evolution theory, she responded: "What I believe is irrelevant. What I will support in Washington, D.C., is the ability of the local school system to decide what is taught in their classrooms."

The most serious problem for either candidate came when O'Donnell was asked to cite any specific recent Supreme Court rulings that she opposed.

"Oh gosh, give me a specific one," she said, and when told the question required her come up with cases, O'Donnell responded, "I'm sorry," and promised to put the information up later on her website.

Coons quickly referred to the Citizens United ruling in January in which the court lifted some limits on corporate contributions to campaign spending.

The debate produced a few humorous moments, such as when Coons said O'Donnell's well-publicized statements from a decade earlier that she dabbled in witchcraft and questioned evolution theory were distractions instead of a substantive campaign issue.

"You're just jealous that you weren't on 'Saturday Night Live'," O'Donnell said, referring to the comedy show's satirical skit about her.

"I'm dying to see who's going to play me," Coons responded with a smile.

O'Donnell's victory made a race considered relatively safe for Republicans based on the expected nomination of the popular Castle into one in which the little-known Coons suddenly became the favorite, due to O'Donnell's inexperience and questions about her past.

Since O'Donnell's primary victory, she has had to deal with controversial and colorful comments she made about a decade ago when she was a spokeswoman for conservative causes.

Her first campaign commercial began with O'Donnell declaring, "I am not a witch" in response to her statement years ago on the program "Politically Incorrect" that she "dabbled in witchcraft."

She acknowledged in an interview with CNN that the resurfaced clips have forced her to reinvent herself in the final weeks of the campaign.

O'Donnell, 41, ran unsuccessfully for Senate twice before, in 2006 and 2008. Since winning the primary, she's had to deal with controversies involving unpaid income taxes and allegations of misusing campaign donations, as well as attacks from Democrats and some Republicans, including Rove, on her qualifications.

Coons, the 47-year-old executive of New Castle County, the state's most populous county, faced no serious opposition in the Democratic primary.

While he is running his first statewide campaign, Coons is neither a political novice nor a party outsider. In 1988, Coons served as a policy researcher for the failed Senate campaign of then-Lt. Gov. S.B. Woo.

He went on to earn a degree from Yale Law School, as well as a master's in ethics from Yale Divinity School.

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