The latest poll commissioned by Democrat Tim Ryan’s campaign shows the U.S. Senate race remains a statistical dead heat.

The poll by Impact Research, a Democratic firm, shows Ryan with 50 percent support to 47 percent for Vance and 3 percent undecided. The poll has a 3.5 percent plus / minus margin of error.

The poll was taken Aug. 17 to 23 of 800 likely general election voters.

It indicates that Republican J.D. Vance getting more unpopular with voters, but Kyle Kondik, a national expert who analyzes elections for the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics and a northeast Ohio native, said he still believes Vance will win the election.

“If Ryan wins, we’ll say the summer was wasted by Vance,” he said. “The clock is starting to tick (toward the Nov. 8 election), and there are signs that Ryan is still in it.”

The Center for Politics last week changed the Senate race to “leaning Republican” from “likely Republican,” which is a downgrade for Vance’s campaign.

That’s because Vance “has been outraised, outspent and outmaneuvered all summer by” Ryan, “who has been using his superior funding to both hammer Vance and bolster himself,” according to Kondik.

The latest poll shows Ryan has “an impressive 23-point lead among self-ID independents.”

Among those polled, 49 percent have a favorable opinion of Ryan compared with 38 with an unfavorable view. In comparison, Vance is seen favorably by 39 percent of those polled with 53 percent unfavorable.

That puts Ryan at plus 11 favorable and Vance at minus 14, according to the poll.

In Impact Research’s previous poll of this race, between June 27 and 30, Ryan, a 10-term congressman from Howland, was at plus 11 favorable and Vance was at minus 11.

In the latest poll, Ryan is at plus 25 favorable with independents while Vance, a venture capitalist and author, is at minus 32.

“There continues to be intensity behind (Vance’s) negatives with more than twice as many voters viewing him very unfavorably (44 percent) as very favorably (just 17 percent),” the poll memo reads. “This will make it more difficult for him to persuade voters to change their minds about him.”

Kondik said the overall favorable-unfavorable numbers in the poll sound accurate.

“Ryan has been able to present himself in an attractive way,” he said. “Vance had the summer to improve his numbers and he didn’t do it. Ryan had this big advantage in the summer.”

Ryan continued to campaign actively and advertise after his May 3 Democratic primary victory while Vance has only begun campaigning and advertising in the past few weeks.

The Impact Research memo states the latest poll shows “Ryan is well-known and well-liked among likely voters statewide with his personal ratings holding up under fire while J.D. Vance remains deeply unpopular despite his recent efforts to rehab his image — fueling Ryan’s strong performance in this otherwise Republican-leaning state.”

Kondik said despite Ryan’s campaign success and the poll showing him with a larger favorable rating, the Democrat is up only 3 percent in a poll his campaign funded.

Two other recent polls, both done by outside polling agencies, showed Vance with a small lead, but Ryan within the statistical margin of error.

Vance’s campaign noted last week that “every independently conducted poll has shown J.D. leading this race.”

An older USA Today Network Ohio / Suffolk University poll, released June 1, had Vance with a small lead and Ryan well within the margin of error.

Izzi Levy, a Ryan campaign spokeswoman, said: “Tim’s workers-first message continues to resonate in every corner of Ohio as he builds a grassroots coalition that’s ready to win in November.”

The Senate Leadership Fund, a super political action committee connected to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, announced Aug. 18 it was booking $28 million in advertising, starting after Labor Day, to help Vance in Ohio. It’s the third-highest amount for a Republican Senate race in the country behind only Georgia and Pennsylvania.

“That is a huge ad reservation,” Kondik said. “They didn’t want to do it in Ohio, but decided they had to. Just because they booked it, doesn’t mean they’ll follow through.”

dskolnick@vindy.com