Poll Gives Donnelly A Razor-Thin Lead Over Braun

Thursday, October 18, 2018 at 7:26 AM

By Mike Perleberg @mikedup84

A new poll looking at Indiana's U.S. Senate race was released Wednesday.

(Left to right) Indiana U.S. Senate candidates Joe Donnelly, Mike Braun, and Lucy Brenton.

(Undated) - The race for Indiana’s U.S. Senate seat is close.

Like really, really close.

A Gravis Marketing poll released Wednesday showed incumbent Democrat Joe Donnelly with 44 percent support, versus 40 percent support for Republican challenger Mike Braun. Libertarian candidate Lucy Brenton gets seven percent support, which could play into the race's outcome.

The difference between Donnelly and Braun is within the poll’s 5.1 percent margin of error, making it a dead heat. That’s been corroborated by The Cook Political Report, which has deemed the race a “toss up.”

Both Braun and Donnelly have been saturating Indiana media with campaign ads, hoping to sway the ten percent of those polled who are uncertain which candidate they will vote for.

The Gravis poll showed President Donald Trump has a 50 percent approval rating among likely voters in Indiana, while 45 percent disapprove.

Donnelly has bucked the national view of Democrats by running ads which show him as a moderate, with audio clips of Trump paying him compliments. A 30-second ad distances Donnelly from far-left Democrats wanting socialized medicine and the abolishment of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, then backing the president’s desired border wall.

Trump, who won Indiana by 19 points in the 2016 election, has made two campaign stops in Indiana in the past couple months to rally support for Braun.