According to an internal poll from the Martin Heinrich campaign obtained by the Politico, the First Congressional district between Heinrich and Darren White is a close race at this point.

The internal poll, by Democratic polling firm Greenberg-Quislan Research, shows Heinrich with a 47-44 advantage over White with a +/- 4.4 percent margin of error.

Josh Kraushaar of Politico says the poll "suggests the race will be one of the most competitive in the country."

The poll offers some good news for both campaigns. White has been touted as one of the Republicans’ top recruits, and for Heinrich to be holding a lead at this point against the better-known White shows his campaign is in solid shape. Heinrich handily won his party’s nomination in June against three under-funded opponents.

White ran against Joe Carraro, who was massively underfunded and not very competitive, in the two-way Republican primary. White won with nearly 90 percent of the Republican vote.

A poll by White’s staff in October showed White ahead by a significant margin, causing Roll Call to call White "untouchable."

Pollster Brian Sanderoff, President of President of Research & Polling, Inc. told the Independent one reason to release an internal poll now is because of fundraising. "They want the world to see that they’re in a close race and a viable candidate. And therefore they want to show to their potential supporters that they’re going to need the campaign funds to win in November."

For a poll this far away from an election, the number of undecideds is remarkably small.

"Darren White’s been a two-term sheriff, he has quite a bit of name recognition and favorability," Sanderoff said. "Martin Heinrich is less well-known. He was a city councilor representing one-ninth of the city."

Sanderoff does say, however, that the primary where Heinrich aired ads served to boost Heinrich’s name recognition. White has yet to air a TV ad.

The polling memo on the internal poll by Greenberg-Quislan says the question on the poll was asked as follows:

“Thinking about the election for U.S. Congress in November, if the election for U.S. Congress were held today and the candidates were Democrat Martin Heinrich and Republican Darren White — for whom would you vote, Democrat Martin Heinrich or Republican Darren White?”

Heinrich campaign manager Jon Blair says the names on the poll were rotated to give the most accurate poll possible.

"This is what we use to make our decisions," Blair told the Independent. "We would not at all benefit from it being at all inaccurate."

Blair also says the poll shows momentum for Heinrich. "If you look back at the the change from the October poll that the Darren White camp released to our poll, which was completed just a few days ago, the progress is outstanding," Blair said.

An e-mail seeking response from the White campaign was not immediately returned.

Election analyst Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight gives some reasons why internal polling needs to be taken with a grain of salt:

When a candidate for office commissions a poll, he is only liable to leak its results to the public if it contains good news for him, thereby encouraging donors, press persons, etc. This does not mean per se that the poll is "biased" — many pollsters do very good and thorough work on behalf of campaigns and affiliated interest groups. But it does mean that there may be a bias in which information becomes part of the public record: we learn about a poll that has a candidate ahead by 10 points in a state, but not one where he is down by 2.

While Silver is referring to presidential and senatorial polling, the type of race doesn’t change any of Silver’s assertions.

Sanderoff agrees with Silver. "When campaigns release polls they do it because they think it’s in their best interest," Sanderoff said. "And when they don’t release polls, it’s because it’s not in their best interest."

The poll surveyed 518 likely district-wide voters from June 29-July 2. The polling memo states the poll gave a 47-37 edge to Democrats, in line with the registration edge Democrats hold in the district.