Democratic U.S. Rep. Tom Allen is gaining ground on U.S. Sen. Susan Collins, the Republican incumbent he hopes to unseat on Nov. 4. At least that's what a new poll commissioned by the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee has found.

Collins leads Allen by 49 percent to 41 percent, an 8 percentage point gap that is considerably smaller than the 15-point lead she once had, the Democratic committee reports. Ten percent of poll respondents said they were undecided.

The poll was conducted from Sept. 30 to Oct. 2 by the Mellman Group, a key consulting and polling firm for the Democratic Party. The firm gathered telephone responses from 600 likely voters. The poll has a margin of error of 4 percent.

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