U.S. Sen. Dan Inouye holds a 13-point lead over Republican challenger Cam Cavasso in his bid for a ninth-consecutive term, according to a new public poll.

The poll, released yesterday by Rasmussen Reports, shows Inouye with 53 percent of the vote, followed by Cavasso with 40 percent and 4 percent undecided.

Cavasso, a former state representative, also ran against Inouye in 2004 and lost by a 75-21 margin.

This is the first Rasmussen Reports survey of the race to include Cavasso, who won the Republican primary on Sept. 18 with 67 percent of the vote. In June, a Rasmussen poll showed Inouye with a better than three-to-one lead over his only announced Republican opponent at the time, John Roco.

The telephone survey of 500 likely voters in Hawaii was conducted on Oct. 13, 2010 by Pulse Opinion Research, LLC for Rasmussen. The margin of error is 4.5 percentage points.