"Sen. Barack Obama has gained ground in Virginia, drawing even with Sen. John McCain.

In the June 12 telephone poll of 500 Virginia voters, 45 percent backed Democrat Obama, while 44 percent supported Republican McCain.

The Rasmussen Reports survey also shows that Democrat Mark R. Warner has widened his already formidable lead over Republican Jim Gilmore in Virginia's Senate race.

Last month, when Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton was still vying for the Democratic nomination, McCain led Obama head-to-head 47 percent to 44 percent according to Rasmussen, an independent polling operation that publishes online.

Virginia has not cast a majority of its votes for a Democratic presidential nominee since President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964.

University of Virginia political analyst Larry J. Sabato said some McCain backers are overconfident.

Republicans are "putting too much emphasis on the historical trends in Virginia," Sabato said. "This is a different kind of year, and the electorate may be structured differently. Democrats are enthusiastic, and Republicans are in the doldrums."

Five percent of Virginia voters favor a third-party candidate and 7 percent are undecided, the survey showed.

The poll shows Warner leading Gilmore 60 percent to 33 percent. The two former governors are vying to succeed Sen. John W. Warner, R-Va., who is retiring. The two Warners are not related.

The senate-race numbers, Sabato said, are not surprising.

"I literally know not a single political analyst in the country who is doing anything other than guessing how big a landslide Mark Warner will have."

The poll's margin of sampling error ranged from plus or minus 3 percentage points to plus or minus 4 percentage points." (Olympia Meola, Richmond Times-Dispatch, June 18, 2008)