November's presidential election between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney is not the only race that is expected to go down to the wire, with the results of two Quinnipiac University polls released Wednesday also showing neck-and-neck Senate races in both Virginia and Connecticut.
In Virginia, the poll found that the Senate race between Democrat Tim Kaine and Republican George Allen is too close to call.
While 44 percent of Virginia voters support Kaine, a former Governor and chairman of the Democratic National Committee, 43 percent support Allen, a former governor and senator. Kaine's one-point lead is well within the poll's margin of error.
Quinnipiac noted that the race between Kaine and Allen has been a dead heat since it began polling, with neither candidate ever holding a lead larger than the poll's margin of error.
Allen, who is looking to retake the seat that he lost to Sen. Jim Webb, D-Virg., in 2006, has a 43 percent to 37 percent lead among independents.
"The Senate race looks like it will go down to the wire on Election Day," said Peter Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute. "With 10 percent of voters undecided, each man has the opportunity to win the seat."
"The Senate race is so close that whatever small margin of victory occurs could well be based on whether President Barack Obama or Gov. Mitt Romney has coattails," he added.
A separate Quinnipiac survey also shows a neck-and neck race in a potential Connecticut Senate matchup between Rep. Christopher Murphy, D-Conn., and former wrestling executive Linda McMahon.
The poll shows Murphy with a 46 percent to 43 percent lead over McMahon, much narrower than the 52 percent to 37 percent lead Murphy held in a March survey.
Murphy and McMahon have both opened big leads in their respective primaries, according to the Quinnipiac survey.
While Murphy has a 50 percent to 20 percent lead over former Secretary of State Susan Bysiewicz in the Democratic primary, McMahon has a 59 percent to 30 percent lead over former Rep. Christopher Shays in the Republican primary.
"McMahon's improvement in the general election against Murphy is due to her better performance among independent voters," said Quinnipiac University Poll Director Douglas Schwartz, PhD. "She now has 43 percent of these key voters, to Murphy's 41 percent, overcoming a 15-point deficit in March."
"Unlike in our last poll, McMahon would be a stronger candidate than Shays against Murphy," he added. "McMahon has been dominating the airwaves and it appears to be paying off."
The survey of 1,282 registered Virginia voters was conducted from May 30th through June 4th and has a margin of error of plus or minus 2.7 percentage points.
Meanwhile, the survey of 1,408 registered Connecticut voters was conducted May 29th through June 3rd and has a margin of error of 2.6 percentage points.
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