After a year of lagging behind his opponent in polls, Sen. John Sununu has closed the gap, transforming New Hampshire's U.S. Senate race into a dead heat, according to a new poll from the University of New Hampshire.

Most surveys for the past year have shown Democrat Jeanne Shaheen holding a double-digit lead over Sununu. National political analysts often rank Sununu, a Republican, as the Senate's most vulnerable incumbent.

The recent poll has Sununu, a Republican, trailing Shaheen 42 to 46 percent, a difference within the margin of error of 4.5 percentage points. The poll, which asked 475 likely voters whom they would vote for if they had to make a choice today, indicates that the race is fluid, with 72 percent of those polled saying they haven't made a final decision.

Sununu's campaign recently made its first request for election ads, according to files at WMUR. The campaign has a pending order for $60,000 of ads per week from Sept. 15 through the Nov. 4 election, for a total of about $440,000. The ads are listed to run during a smattering of news shows, along with talk shows like Ellen and Oprah and some prime-time offerings, including Dancing with the Stars and Ugly Betty.

The poll results still are not great news for Sununu, said pollster Andy Smith, noting that Sununu remains behind and that he falls short of the standard measure of an incumbent's electoral health - whether he can clear 50 percent in a poll. But it's also bad news for Shaheen, whose favorability ratings have steadily slipped.

"The bad news for Sununu is he's still under 50 percent," said Smith, the director of the UNH Survey Center. "The bad news for Shaheen is that her support is dropping."

Political watchers struggled to explain why Shaheen's unfavorable ratings have risen through three consecutive UNH polls to put her close to a tie with Sununu. Of those polled, 31 percent said they have an unfavorable opinion of Shaheen and 53 percent had a favorable impression. Meanwhile, Sununu's ratings have improved, with 33 percent rating him unfavorably and 52 percent favorably.

"There's no strong compelling reason that explains that," said Wayne Lesperance, an associate professor of political science at New England College.

Smith said a tightening race was widely expected. The Sununu-Shaheen race is a rematch of 2002, when Sununu, then a congressman, beat Shaheen, then a three-term governor, by about 20,000 votes.

Shaheen spokeswoman Kate Bedingfield downplayed the poll, saying that past surveys have shown Shaheen holding a 12- or 20-point lead. "I think it shows that certainly this is going to be a close race," she said. "The only poll that matters is on Election Day."

The poll doesn't show a wider resurgence for the Republican Party, whose ratings in New Hampshire have sunk along with those of President Bush and the Iraq war.

In the presidential race, the UNH poll found Democrat Barack Obama taking a thin lead over Republican John McCain, 46 to 43 percent, with a margin of error of 4.5 percentage points. The other races were essentially unchanged, Smith said.

"I don't really see a surge for the Republican Party," Smith said. "McCain actually lost ground between the last poll we did in late April and this most recent one."

Smith said voters' increasing preoccupation with rising energy prices may favor Sununu. Like other Republicans, Sununu has argued for drilling in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and for lifting bans on drilling offshore. Shaheen, who opposes such drilling, has argued that government should crack down on energy speculators.

"I think that the Republican argument, to heck with the polar bears and the seals and such. . . . I think that's a more populist message and an easier message to explain to voters," Smith said.

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