ALBANY – The Republican challenging Senator Schumer in the fall election is running an unexpectedly close race – for third place.

The latest Quinnipiac poll shows the GOP candidate, Assemblyman Howard Mills of Orange County, at 13% among registered voters, just four points ahead of the Conservative Party nominee, Marilyn O’Grady of Nassau County.

Meanwhile Mr. Schumer, a Democrat of Brooklyn, is maintaining a comfortable lead at 62%.

The lopsided poll numbers suggest the contest could be not only a triumph for Mr. Schumer, but a humiliation for Mr. Mills and the Republican Party under Governor Pataki.

Party officials anointed Mr. Mills in February, after several other better-known Republicans turned down what was seen as an uphill race against Mr. Schumer – a popular Democrat who has raised almost $22 million, more than any other Senate candidate in the nation.

“Senator Schumer has a 49-point lead with less than three months to go until the election,” said the director of Quinnipiac University Polling Institute, Maurice Carroll. “The only question here is whether the Conservative Party candidate can beat the Republican.”

The poll of 1,161 registered voters, taken between August 3 and 9, has a margin of error of plus or minus 2.9 percentage points.

A spokeswoman for Mr. Mills, Caroline Quartararo, played down the results, noting that 62% of those responding said they were paying little or no attention at this point in the contest.

“We’re confident that our message of freedom, tax cuts, and a strong stand against terrorism will resonate with voters as they focus on the race this fall,” Ms. Quartararo said.

Some Republicans blame party officials for picking a little-known candidate and doing little to support him. Although Mr. Pataki has raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for President Bush, Governor Schwarzenegger, and other candidates outside New York, Mr. Mills had only $204,000 in the bank as of June 30 – less than one-tenth of Mr. Schumer’s war chest.

And, though Mr. Pataki and Mayor Bloomberg are hosting the Republican National Convention at Madison Square Garden later this month, Mr. Mills was not invited to address the convention.

“The state party and the governor’s office are all focused on the convention,” said one Republican consultant, speaking on condition of anonymity. “They’re not doing anything to help Mills.”

A third-place finish “would be devastating for the Republican state party, and for Mills, and – I would have to say – the governor,” the consultant said. “And it is possible.”

Others attributed Mr. Mills’s poor showing in the poll to the overlap between his views and Mr. Schumer’s, including support for legalized abortion and gay rights.

“Mr. Mills doesn’t present a real alternative to voters,” said a spokesman for Dr. O’Grady, Howard Lim. “When voters look for an alternative to the kinds of policies Senator Schumer has embodied during his time in office, they’ll find a real contrast in Dr. O’Grady.”

“Why vote for a fake liberal when you can vote for a real one?” said Michael Benjamin, a Wall Street financier who had hoped to challenge Mr. Mills in a primary but dropped out after meeting stiff resistance from party officials.

Yesterday, Dr. O’Grady’s campaign – which had only $1,200 as of June 30 – began airing TV ads in the Albany area that call for a boycott of rock star Bruce Springsteen because of his outspoken opposition to President Bush.