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A new poll in the closely watched Nevada Senate race confirms what many had already suspected: many voters are going to be holding their noses when they cast their ballots in November.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid had the support of 45 percent of likely Nevada voters, while Republican challenger Sharron Angle was running neck-and-neck with 44 percent.

The telephone poll of 625 likely voters was conducted by Mason-Dixon Polling & Research Monday through Wednesday and has a margin of error of 4 percentage points.

The race has been closely contested for several weeks, but the most jarring numbers from the new Las Vegas Review-Journal/8NewsNow poll are the negative ratings for each candidate.

Fifty-two percent said they had a negative opinion of Reid, while 39 percent have a favorable view. As for Angle, 43 percent viewed her unfavorably and 32 percent favorably.

Both candidates have been leaning heavily on negative campaigning, and the new poll shows that Reid and Angle appear to have done an effective job of casting each other in a negative light.

After having his political life declared finished by most prognosticators for most of the past year, Reid has made significant headway since Angle's victory in the June Republican primary and has led the Tea Party-favorite in most polls since July.

Sixty-eight percent of those polled said that they would have preferred it if someone other than Angle had won the June Republican primary, including 71 percent of Republicans. Even among those who said they would vote for Angle, 66 percent said that they would have preferred a different Republican candidate to support in November.

Reid's numbers in that category are not quite as bad as Angle's. Forty-nine percent of those polled said they would have preferred it if a different Democrat had won the nomination, including 28 percent of Democrats. Among those who say they'll vote for Reid, just 18 percent would have preferred a different nominee.

Still, Reid may have reached a ceiling in his level of support, having already made significant headway in portraying Angle as an extremist.

To an even greater degree than in other states, the Nevada race may come down to the economy, as the state's unemployment rate stands at 14.3 percent, far surpassing the national rate of 9.5 percent.

Those numbers could spell more trouble for Reid in November. Forty-seven percent of Nevadans polled said that President Obama's policies have hurt the national economic situation, while only 29 percent said that they have improved it.