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With less than six weeks to go until Election Day, Republican Senate candidate Ed Gillespie is up with his first TV ad in population-rich Northern Virginia.

The 30-second, straight-to-camera ad from the candidate focuses on economic issues, hitting Democratic incumbent Mark Warner –- a former governor who’s running on pro-business, bipartisan credentials -- for voting with Obama “97 percent of the time.”

“Today, too many Virginians are squeezed by Mark Warner and President Obama’s policies that raise taxes, increase prices and kill jobs,” Gillespie says in the ad.

Gillespie has been on the air in the state since August, but this is his first spot in the pricey Washington D.C.-area market.

A new Quinnipiac poll out Thursday showed Warner beating Gillespie 48 percent to 39 percent. But other polls have showed Warner with a bigger lead.

- Carrie Dann