As surely as Harvard students return to the Square each fall, Cambridge voters are treated to heated races each election year.

This year's races for state representative are no exception.

Most Cantabrigians will be judges in either a rematch of the 1996 race in which incumbent Alice K. Wolf beat Vice Mayor Anthony D. Galluccio by 89 votes or a three-candidate effort to oust the five-term part-time Harvard security guard Alvin E. Thompson.

The city's smaller districts, are held by Rep. Timothy J. Toomey, Jr. and Rep. Paul C. Demakis, are uncontested in the primary.

`Personalities and Class'

The battle between Wolf and Galluccio is being fought along the streets of the 27th Middlesex District which encompasses North Cambridge, West Cambridge and much of the Harvard campus.

Cambridge resident Glenn S. Koocher '71, who hosts the local cable television program "Cambridge Inside Out," says the differences between the two candidates run deeper than the issues they support.

Koocher, who says he plans to vote for Galluccio, says the distinction between the candidates lies in "personalities and class."

While Galluccio supporters tend to be long-term Cambridge residents from blue-collar backgrounds, Koocher says Wolf's supporters are liberals who tend to have a condescending attitude towards the working class.

"What's not being said [in the Galluccio campaign] is `I'm not a snob like Alice and her people,"' Koocher says.

Koocher cited an incident, which took place earlier this month, as typical of Wolf's campaign tactics.

Wolf's political consultant Kate Champion Murphy mistakenly left a message on a stranger's answering machine in which she said she was looking for liberal lawyers to criticize Galluccio's non-profit organization for an earlier paperwork glitch.

In the message, which was printed in the Cambridge Chronicle, Murphy said she wanted to "have other people [besides Wolf] throwing arrows" at Galluccio.

Galluccio was contacted by the Attorney General's Office in August after he filed to incorporate his non-profit organization Galluccio Associates, which donates money to youth sports programs.

The Office of the Attorney General informed Galluccio that he had not been-been legally collecting donations illegally because he had never filed the necessary papers.