When ‘‘Hardball’‘ host Chris Matthews hinted in April at his interest in a 2010 Senate bid, it put a scare into the staff of his prospective opponent, U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter.

For good reason. The talk show host trails the five-term Republican by only 5 percentage points in a hypothetical match-up, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released Tuesday. Specter’s seat is up for election in two years.

Specter, 78, leads Matthews by 41 percent to 36 percent, with 19 percent undecided, the poll of 1,580 Pennsylvania voters found. Conducted from July 30 to Sunday, it has a margin of error of plus or minus 2.5 percentage points.