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Rep. Roscoe Bartlett, R-Md., is in a virtual tie with his Democratic challenger, but the incumbent is mired dangerously below 45 percent, according to a poll commissioned by Democratic-aligned House Majority PAC and SEIU.

Bartlett took 42 percent in the survey of Maryland's new 6th Congressional District, compared to 44 percent for Democratic financier John Delaney. The poll was conducted July 23-25 by Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research, surveying 400 likely voters with a margin of error of plus-or-minus 4.9 percentage points.

The poll isn't a death knell for Bartlett's congressional career; nearly half of the district's residents are new to the GOP veteran, and he got a late start selling himself to voters after some confusion about whether or not he was retiring at the beginning of the year. But Delaney is probably in a better position to press home advantages in the poll. The Democrat contributed over $1.7 million of his own money to his campaign so far, most of that for his primary effort, and could supplement good fundraising with self-funding in the general, too. The poll also demonstrates the district's new Democratic lean: President Obama is leading Mitt Romney 51 percent to 42 percent in the presidential race there.

In April, a Delaney internal poll conducted by Garin-Hart-Yang Research Group found him leading Bartlett 48 percent to 39 percent.