Shifting our focus back to the WVa (or is it Pennsylvania?) US Senate race, Rasmussen says GOP businessman John Raese has a 7-point lead, his biggest yet, in the election against Dem governor Joe Manchin:

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.

The West Virginia race now shifts back from a Toss-Up to Leans Republican in the Rasmussen Reports Election 2010 Senate Balance of Power rankings.