COLUMBUS, Ohio - A new newspaper poll shows that Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown has opened up a 10-point lead over Republican challenger Josh Mandel.

The poll published Monday by The Columbus Dispatch shows the first-term Democratic senator leading Mandel, the state treasurer, by 49 percent to 39 percent. In the first Dispatch poll Aug. 26, the two were tied at 44 percent.

The mail poll of 1,662 randomly selected likely Ohio voters was taken from Sept. 19 through Saturday. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 2.2 percentage points.

The transformation in the Senate contest parallels that of the presidential race in the battleground state, which went from deadlocked in the Dispatch survey to a 9 percentage point margin for President Barack Obama over Republican Mitt Romney.