Rasmussen has its new survey taken yesterday of 750 likely voters in the West Virginia race for the US Senate seat vacated by Robert Byrd’s death (via RCP).  John Raese has a seven point lead with and without leaners over Governor Joe Manchin, despite Manchin’s attempts to paint Raese as unqualified and recast himself as a born-again Obama opponent.

The sample breakdown in this poll shows Democrats with a 13-point advantage, 48/35.  That almost exactly duplicates the 2008 partisan breakdown of turnout in the presidential election, which favored Democrats 48/34 while John McCain won the state by thirteen points.  It’s slightly more generous to Democrats than yesterday’s Fox News poll, which gave Democrats an eleven-point advantage in a smaller sample.

Raese wins 48/41 without leaners and gets to the majority with a 50/43 when leaners are included.  With leaners, Raese wins every age demographic except 18-29YOs, which he only loses by seven, 42/49.  Raese also gets 32% of Democrats and narrowly carries independents, 48/41.  Manchin gets 18% of Republicans and has a twelve-point advantage among women, 52/40, but Raese wins big with men, 61/35.

On the issues, the likelihood of Manchin closing the gap seems pretty slim.  Voters want ObamaCare repealed almost 3-1, 72/26.  Raese has a lead in trust on the health-care issue, 48/39, despite Manchin’s flip-flop to oppose ObamaCare.  Raese has a much wider gap on trust to reduce federal spending, 50/33.

The movement in other polls hasn’t shown up in Rasmussen, and given the turnout model in this sample, Rasmussen may even underestimate Raese’s eventual support in the final vote.