A poll commissioned by the campaign for Republican Assembly District 36 candidate Ed Goedhart showed Goedhart leading opponent Laurayne Murray 42.2 percent to 29.3 percent.

The computerized poll of 638 voters was conducted by Dane and Associates, a polling firm, Tuesday.

Another 28.5 percent of voters are listed as undecided.

However Murray said she had two polls conducted which showed a closer result.

Assembly District 36 includes Nye, Esmeralda, Mineral, Lincoln and a third of Churchill County.

Goedhart campaign aide Laura Billman said the number of undecided voters dropped from 42 percent to 28.5 percent since a poll was conducted Oct. 6.

The poll didn't include Independent American Party candidate David Holmgren, from Mineral County. The Goedhart campaign expects Holmgren to draw 10 percent to 12 percent.

His wife, Jackie Holmgren, ran for the district seat in 2002 and gathered 9.2 percent of the vote in a race that also featured Republican Rod Sherer and Democrat Roy Mankins.

Billman said Goedhart leads in all but Mineral County, where he is tied with Murray.

Results for only Pahrump voters show Goedhart with a 14-point lead, with 45 percent of those queried, compared to 31 percent for Murray. Another 24 percent said they were undecided. The Pahrump group surveyed included 420 respondents.

Goedhart's percent of the vote in the poll almost equals the percent of Pahrump voters who are registered Republicans, Murray's vote percentage is less than the percentage of registered Democrats. Registered Republicans outnumber Democrats in Pahrump 45 percent to 38 percent.

Chuck Patti, a local representative for Dane and Associates, the polling firm, said the poll was taken randomly by computer, from a list of active voters. Those people were asked if the election were held today who they would vote for, and instructed to press one for Goedhart, two for Murray or three for undecided. Patti said they used the order Goedhart and Murray will appear in the ballot.

Though the poll was commissioned by the Goedhart campaign, Patti felt it was impartial. He said the polls proved to be a good indicator of how people actually voted in the Aug. 15 primary.

Murray said pollsters for her campaign used an actual person to ask questions, not a computer. At the start of the first survey Murray said she was trailing Goedhart by 12 percentage points, but after respondents in that survey were asked not only who they were voting for, but given the pros and cons of each candidate, both candidates were in a dead heat, each with 37 percent of the vote.

After the second poll, a couple weeks ago, Murray said, "I was down just a little over three points." That would place her within the 5 percentage point margin of error by pollsters.

Murray said her polls, conducted by Beneson Strategy Group, also came up with a large number of undecided voters.

"A sample is nothing more than a sample, and with the undecided (vote) in there, it's still anybody's race," Murray said.