Poll: Donnelly leads GOP opponent by 2 points in Indiana

Democratic Sen. Joe Donnelly (Ind.) is holding a narrow lead in the crucial Indiana Senate race, according to a poll released Wednesday.

Donnelly is leading GOP Senate candidate Mike Braun 48 to 46 in likely voters, according to the NBC News/Marist poll, with seven percent saying they are undecided.

The margin is narrower than a six-point lead Donnelly held in the same poll in September.

When Libertarian Lucy Brenton is included in the poll, Donnelly holds a 3-point lead over Braun — the same as September’s NBC News/Marist poll.

“Although Donnelly has a numeric 3-point edge over Braun, the proportion of persuadable voters is nearly five times greater than the margin that separates the candidates,” said Lee Miringoff, director of the Marist College Institute for Public Opinion, referring to the 14 percent of voters who say they are persuadable.

The poll was conducted from Oct. 24-28, including calls with 496 likely voters and a margin of error of 5.5 percentage points.

Donnelly is one of the 10 Democrats running for Senate seats in states President Trump won in 2016. If Democrats want to regain the majority, they have to win in each of those states as well as flip two seats currently held by Republicans.

The race with Braun has been close for weeks with which of the two candidates is leading alternating over the past month according to polling.

Braun is leading by less than a percentage point, according to a Real Clear Politics average of recent polling.

Donnelly was down three points against Braun in a Cygnal poll released Tuesday, though the race was within the margin of error.