WASHINGTON -- If there were a three-time-loser law in politics, John Ray would be out of luck.

Mr. Ray is best-known as a downtown lawyer, at-large council member and nice-guy politician who just didn't have the right stuff to win election in three previous tries for mayor of the District of Columbia.

But as this city's Democratic primary campaign heads toward its final week, Mr. Ray finds himself elbowing a rehabbed and reborn Marion S. Barry Jr. for a place atop the polls.

Mr. Ray, however, remains an unremarkable figure in the eyes of most voters. The 16-year council member readily acknowledges that his standing in the polls probably says as much about the liabilities of his two major opponents, Mr. Barry and Mayor Sharon Pratt Kelly, as it does about his own popularity.

"I'm certainly in the category of being the alternative," Mr. Ray said. "Those are the two people who dug the hole we are in."

Mr. Ray, 51, lacks the charisma, political guile and common touch of Mr. Barry. And he exhibits neither the sternness nor steely toughness of Mayor Kelly. But after enduring 12 years of Mr. Barry's cavorting mayoral style, and suffering what many have seen as the broken promise of reform offered by Ms. Kelly's term in office, worn-out District voters may be ready to turn to Mr. Ray.

Voters are slowly tuning in to his promise to focus on improving the machinery of government. He wants to hire more police officers, pick up more trash and make the government more efficient. But most of all, his supporters seem fed up with the other candidates.

"He is picking up the disillusioned Kelly supporters and the anyone-but-Barry voters," said Howard Croft, chairman of the urban studies department at the University of the District of Columbia. "He doesn't have much of a political identity, and that has been a liability for him in the past. But in this election, he is turning that into an asset."

A Washington Post poll published last week showed Mr. Ray to be favored by 33 percent of the city's registered Democrats, while Mr. Barry was the choice of 34 percent, putting the two front-runners in a statistical dead heat. Ms. Kelly, 50, whose stunning political fall shows no signs of abating, was favored by 14 percent of the respondents.

As the campaign enters its final days, Mr. Ray is emerging as the candidate in the best position to win the primary, which traditionally has been tantamount to election here because 78 percent of the registered voters are Democrats. (However, Councilman Bill Lightfoot is regarded as a possible, well-financed independent candidate in the November general election if Mr. Ray loses the primary.)

Mr. Ray is strongest among white voters and upper-income residents of all races, groups that historically vote in the largest numbers in the District and who see Mr. Barry, 58, as a scoundrel because of his flamboyant history of womanizing, drug and alcohol abuse, and perceived mismanagement of the city.

Meanwhile, Mr. Barry, who was elected to the City Council in 1992 after serving a six-month prison sentence on a misdemeanor drug conviction, enjoys rock-solid support from young, poor and working-class voters -- groups whose numbers are swelling, but who are less-than-reliable about going to the polls.

In addition, Mr. Ray seems well-positioned to capture voters who may abandon Mayor Kelly once they decide that she has no dTC chance of re-election, because Mr. Barry is an anathema to many of them.

But even with those factors on his side, Mr. Ray concedes he is nervous about his poll numbers and his seemingly less-than-enthusiastic support -- which is understandable given his long history as a failed mayoral candidate.

In 1990, he was the acknowledged front-runner until Ms. Kelly, then a political novice, came from far back to defeat him. In 1978, he aborted his candidacy to support Mr. Barry for mayor. And in 1986, he was trounced in the Democratic mayoral primary.

"Every election has its own characteristics," Mr. Ray said. "A lot of it depends on timing."

Clearly, Mr. Ray thinks his time has come. At a recent meet-and-greet session with about 20 upper-income white voters a downtown apartment, Jeffrey Newcomb, the host, introduced Mr. Ray as a politician whose moment has finally arrived.

"Last time, we elected a mayor who we thought would be the answer," Mr. Newcomb said. "But we found out that she definitely is not the answer."

Then, turning to Mr. Ray, he added, "So we have here a new hope."

In his talk, he pounded on the themes that he had emphasized throughout the campaign. On his lack of charisma, he said: "This city, for so long, has been caught up in personalities as mayor," he told the gathering. "But we've had personalities. Now, people are looking for substance."

He also promised to stem the decline in this city's quality of life that has caused 29,000 people -- mainly members of the middle class -- to flee since 1990. He promised more sanitation workers to clean streets and tougher personnel rules to improve the notoriously inefficient and callous D.C. government bureaucracy.

"I'm going to find some way to get rid of those people [in the government] who hate people," he said.

Also, he promised to bolster the city's beleaguered police force and hire a commissioner who would be tough on crime, which he called the No. 1 issue in the election. "I want [the commissioner] to walk right up to the line," he said. "And if he crosses the line with some of these thugs, then I hope he crosses it gent

ly."

That kind of talk plays well with this audience. Still, much of Mr. Ray's support remains soft, which was evident even at an event set up in his honor.

Jeanette Pablo, a downtown attorney and Ray volunteer who attended the session, said she admires Mr. Ray's pragmatism and apparent competence. But, she concedes, her reasons for supporting him, after she backed Ms. Kelly in 1990, boil down to this: "He's not either one of them," she said referring to Ms. Kelly and Mr. Barry, "That's all he needs to say."

Making that type of tepid support stand up through the Sept. 13 primary is one of Mr. Ray's major challenges. Also, it remains to be seen whether he can connect with the city's blacks, who make up about two-thirds of the city's 350,000 registered voters.

While Mr. Ray has shown some strength among the black middle class, Mr. Barry -- even after his fall from power after being caught in 1990 smoking crack on an FBI videotape -- remains the overwhelming choice of this city's poor and working-class voters.

"Right now, Ray's support appears to be overwhelmingly white," said Mr. Croft, the UDC professor. "If he wins that way, he'll face the same problems Ms. Kelly faced in governing. Will black people look at him as their [own] mayor or 'their mayor?' "

Mr. Ray has been painted as a friend of the business community, an image he has been unable to shake since siding with District landlords against a rent-control law in 1985.

"The downtown lawyer -- I don't mind being that," Mr. Ray said. "I'm trying to create for young men and young women an image that you can be a lawyer, you can be a doctor."

In reality, Mr. Ray comes from humble beginnings, a fact that he is talking about more frequently. He grew up poor in rural Georgia, and was able to pull himself out of poverty by enlisting in the Air Force. After a six-year hitch, he moved to Washington, where he attended college and law school at George Washington University.

"I never ran around standing on every corner crying the blues about how hard I had it," Mr. Ray said. Terry Van Wyck, who lives in a gentrified neighborhood downtown and is supporting Mr. Ray, said he was impressed after hearing him speak at his friend's apartment.

"Before I heard him, I thought I had to vote for him," Mr. Van Wyck said, "Now, I want to."