Despite heavy spending against him by conservative third-party groups, Rep. Heath Shuler holds a 15-point lead in North Carolina’s 11th district, according to a new Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee poll.

The survey, which was in the field Oct. 17 to 19, showed the Blue Dog Democrat ahead of Republican Jeff Miller, 54 percent to 39 percent. The Democratic firm Greenberg Quinlan Rosner conducted the poll of 401 likely voters. It had a 4.9-point margin of error.

Though Miller was never expected to compete financially with Shuler’s huge war chest, Republicans have been optimistic about making the western North Carolina seat a late addition to the 2010 playing field, in large part because they thought conservative third-party groups, such as the well-funded Americans for Job Security, had softened up the second-term Congressman in recent weeks. AJS alone has spent more than $750,000 targeting Shuler.

“Every day that goes by voters in Western North Carolina learn how out of touch Jeff Miller’s agenda really is,” said DCCC spokesman Jesse Ferguson in a release. “Voters are focusing on what his job-killing agenda would mean in Congress and they don’t like what they see.”