Rasmussen, 9/30. Likely voters. MoE 4.5% (7/28 results)
Johanns (R) 52 (56)
Kleeb (D) 38 (31)
The best news from this poll for Orange to Blue candidate Scott Kleeb:
This month, Kleeb has taken the lead among unaffiliated voters in Nebraska, 43% to 35%. That’s a big shift from July, when Johanns led this group of voters by a 47% to 30% margin. Among men, the Republican leads 53% to 37%. Women favor Johanns by a 52% to 40% margin.
That unaffiliated voter shift is significant--25 points. Whether Kleeb can sustain and build on those gains by November is a key question. It's been a major battle for name recognition for Scott in the large Omaha and Lincoln markets. Western Nebraska, where he ran strong in 2006 for the Congressional seat, knows him and likes him. He's got to extend that reach to the more populous part of the state to combat the well-known former governor.
Other elements of note in the poll: though both are popular, Johanns has higher unfavorables than Kleeb, 34-32, and his "Very Unfavorable" has more than doubled since July, from 6 to 15%. The Republican brand is taking a hit everywhere, and that's reflected in the growth of Johann's unfavorable numbers, though they're still pretty manageable.
Ras also polled the presidential race:
McCain (R) 56 (50)
Obama (D) 37 (32)
So among all four candidates, Johanns is the only one who's lost support in the last three months, according to Rasmussen. Just a data point that I'm not enough of a horserace analyst to really dig into, but it does suggest that there are some questions in voters minds about him, and a chunk of them have moved to Kleeb. The best way to help encourage that movement is for Scott to have a real media presence in the population centers, where he can get his ads, like this one, up:
If you've got a few bucks to spare lying around, getting Scott on the air would be a good use for them.