Kansas City, Mo ? A newspaper poll of Kansas voters showing Democrat Kathleen Sebelius leading Republican Tim Shallenburger by 9 points in the governor’s race won’t change either candidate’s strategy, aides said.

The poll of 602 likely voters, conducted for The Kansas City Star by the newspaper’s marketing research department, showed Sebelius leading Shallenburger 46 percent to 37 percent, with 15 percent undecided.

Libertarian Dennis Hawver and the Reform Party’s Ted Pettibone each received 1 percent.

The telephone survey was conducted in conjunction with the Market Research Institute from Oct. 23 through Tuesday. The poll had a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.

A spokeswoman for Sebelius said she was not surprised by the findings. The aide, Nicole Corcoran-Basso, said she had seen several polls in recent days, and The Star’s poll showed the race closer than any of them.

“We expected things to tighten as we got closer to the election,” she said.

A poll conducted for the Harris News Service released Sunday showed Sebelius leading Shallenburger by 53 percent to 34 percent, with 12 percent undecided.

Corcoran-Basso said the results of The Star’s poll would not change Sebelius’ approach to the election.

“We’re continuing to work hard for the next six days to earn the numbers that really matter, and those are the numbers we’ll see on Nov. 5,” she said.

Alan Cobb, Shallenburger’s campaign manager, said the poll results were “consistent with where we believe the race is.”