After months of speeches and debates, and nearly $1 billion in total campaign spending to date, the presidential race is a dead heat.

A head-to-head showdown between Sens. John McCain and Barack Obama is now too close to call — 45.9 percent to 44.6 percent — based on an averaging of national polls by realclearpolitics.com. A head-to-head showdown between McCain and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton is also razor-thin, 46 percent to 45.7 percent.

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Now, a poll of likely Christian voters offers evidence of why the McCain campaign is struggling to gain real traction and a lead that can last. The poll was conducted among 1,000 likely Christian voters early last week, on behalf of November Communications, Inc., the company I founded in 2000. McLaughlin & Associates, a leading polling firm for many Republican candidates, but unaffiliated in the current presidential campaign, conducted the survey.

The Arizona senator is losing the Christian vote decisively to both Obama and Clinton, even though the poll was conducted as the recent firestorm over the Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr. erupted.

If the general election were held today, McCain would lose the Christian vote to the Democratic nominee — 36 percent to 45 percent — with 19 percent of Christian voters currently undecided.

Among Protestants, McCain pulls even with the Democrats at 40 percent. But the Democrats have a whopping 32-point lead over McCain among Catholics.

Among white evangelical Protestants, McCain is doing better (51 percent to 28 percent), but clearly they have not rallied behind him at this point.

By contrast, the 2004 exit polls found that George W. Bush beat John Kerry among Protestants (59 percent to 40 percent), Catholics (52 percent to 47 percent), and white evangelical Protestants (78 percent to 21 percent).