A new poll out Sunday gives Democrats a fighting chance for the U.S. Senate seat if Democrat Scott McAdams goes up against Republican Joe Miller, but would lose handily to Sen. Lisa Murkowski.

But if Murkowski loses the GOP nomination to Miller and gets into a three-way race as a Libertarian, she would come pretty close to Miller, and McAdams would drop to a distant third, the poll by Public Policy Polling Inc. of North Carolina shows.

PPP is regarded as a Democrat-affiliated polling group.

The telephone survey of 1,306 likely voters was taken Friday and Saturday. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 2.7 percent.

According to the survey, Miller leads McAdams 47 percent to 39 percent. Factor in Murkowski and the numbers go like this: Miller 38 percent, Murkowski 34 percent and McAdams 22 percent.

A matchup between Murkowski and McAdams would see Murkowski with a huge lead, 60 percent to 28 percent.

A press release sent out Sunday said folks who favor Murkowski would vote 47-23 for McAdams if she was not in the general election.

The poll also tested favorable and unfavorable ratings for Miller and McAdams which shook out like this: Joe Miller, 52 percent unfavorable, 36 percent favorable, 12 percent not sure; Scott McAdams, 24 percent unfavorable, 23 percent favorable, 53 percent not sure.

A question about Lisa Murkowski was phrased as approval or disapproval of her job performance: 50 percent approve, 43 percent disapprove, 7 percent not sure.

The full survey, which includes some interesting demographics, can be found here.