New Poll: Collins +12 (?)

According to WMTW:

A new [Critical Insights] poll indicates Republican Sen. Susan Collins has a 12-point lead over Democratic Rep. Tom Allen in her re-election bid.

The margin of error is five percent, which puts it on the high side.

Not clear if those numbers refer to likely voters or registered voters--previous polls from Critical Insights have broken out numbers for both.

We'll see what we can find out.

UPDATE: We're hearing that this survey suffers from some of the same shortcomings that marred the last Critical Insights poll.

Specifically, we're hearing that it overweights Democrats, underweights independents, overweights older voters and dramatically underweights young voters.

All in all, it doesn't inspire much confidence.

Still, the Critical Insights numbers have been toward the middle of the pack all race long. And it's notable that if you throw out the Pan Atlantic number--as we're inclined to--the last four polls in this race show margins of +10, +13, +11 and +12 in Collins' favor.

Taken together, that seems like pretty strong evidence that Collins is leading outside the margin of error. It suggests that it will take extremely strong Democratic turnout, presidential race coattails and further narrowing for Allen to close the gap.

But in such a volatile, Democrat-friendly electoral climate, that remains a live possibility. (Which is why the Collins camp continues to pump out the distortions.)