NC Sen. Hagan leads in new poll

Sen. Kay Hagan (D-N.C.) has a lead over North Carolina House Speaker Thom Tillis (R) in a new poll from NBC News, the latest to find her sustaining a small but sturdy advantage in the race.

{mosads}Hagan leads Tillis by 44 percent to 40 percent with Libertarian Sean Haugh pulling 7 percent in the live-called poll, conducted by Marist College.

The survey is the latest to find Hagan in the lead.

The first-term senator has managed to keep ahead of Tillis for months in spite of the unpopularity of President Obama in the red state, buoyed by a huge fundraising and spending advantage and the unpopularity of the state legislature that Tillis heads.

Republicans have been increasingly worried about the state of Tillis’s campaign and Democrats are bullish about Hagan’s chances, one of the few clear bright spots for their party this cycle.

The live-caller poll of 665 likely voters was conducted from Sept. 27 through Oct. 1 and has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.8 percent.