After several polls showing the race narrowing, today’s Rasmussen poll reports:

Republican John Raese has now opened up a seven-point lead over West Virginia Governor Joe Manchin in perhaps the most improbably close U.S. Senate contest in the country. It’s Raese’s biggest lead yet.

A new Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of Likely West Virginia Voters finds Raese with 50% support to Manchin’s 43%. Two percent (2%) like some other candidate in the race, and five percent (5%) are undecided.

Maybe this is all static — slight movement within the margin of error. Or maybe in the debate, and in Manchin’s ad touting ObamaCare, voters were reminded that the way to stop the Obama agenda is to send to Washington D.C. lawmakers who, well, oppose the Obama agenda. And besides, Manchin is a popular governor (“69% of the state’s voters approve of the job Manchin is doing as governor”), so voters may have figured out that they can have both Raese and Manchin.