McCaskill leads by 4, Romney and Nixon up comfortably

PPP's final Missouri poll finds Claire McCaskill holding on to a narrow lead over Todd Akin, 48-44. Libertarian Jonathan Dine is polling at 6%. Since our last poll two weeks ago McCaskill's gained 2 points, while Akin's seen a 4 point increase in his support.

Akin's image isn't getting any better. He now has a 29% favorability rating with 56% of voters rating him unfavorably, the worst numbers we've found for him to date. Nevertheless Republicans are starting to unify around him a little bit more as the election approaches- he's gone from getting 74% of his party vote on our last poll to now 79%. He's also pulled even with independents at 46%, although he's still running 19 points behind Mitt Romney on that front.

Akin's chances at pulling off an upset comeback victory may depend on whether Dine really gets 6% at the polls on Tuesday. His voters support Mitt Romney 70/25 over Barack Obama and Dave Spence 61/34 over Jay Nixon, so clearly he's pulling from folks who otherwise would have voted Republican. The Dine voters hate Akin- only 12% see him favorably to 67% with a negative opinion. But they hate McCaskill too- only 8% approve of the job she's doing to 67% who disapprove. If they stay with Dine, McCaskill wins. If they decide the desire for a Republican Senate outweighs their disgust for Akin, then Akin has a chance.

This race has one of the biggest gender gaps we've seen all year, with McCaskill leading 55/38 among women while Akin has a 52/38 lead with men. McCaskill's lead is largely built on the fact that 91% of Democrats support her while only 79% of Republicans support Akin. Akin is up 51/43 with whites, while McCaskill leads 90/6 with African Americans.

The Senate race is definitely where the excitement is for Missouri on Tuesday night. After being the closest state in the Presidential contest in 2008 it looks like it will be a blowout this year, with Mitt Romney leading Barack Obama 53/45. Obama is very unpopular in the state with only 41% of voters approving of him to 53% who disapprove. Romney has a 52/40 favorability rating. Key to Romney's advantage is a 57/38 lead among independents.

The race for Governor doesn't look like it will be terribly competitive either. Democratic incumbent Jay Nixon leads Republican challenger Dave Spence 53-45. The race has tightened in the closing stretch but Nixon is still taking 14% of Republicans while losing only 4% of Democrats, and he has a 53/42 lead with independents. Nixon continues to be among the more popular Governors in the country with a 51/31 approval spread. Spence has come across well to voters over the course of the campaign- 38% rate him favorably to 28% with an unfavorable opinion. But even with 48 hours left to go, 34% of voters still don't have an opinion about him either way.

Full results here