Yes, it's an internal poll, and campaigns only release (or leak) their own polls when it serves their interests. But those caveats aside, this poll looks pretty good for Darcy Burner.

Among primary voters who vote for one of the Democratic candidates on the initial ballot, Darcy Burner currently leads the pack with a decisive lead. Burner leads with nearly half of the vote (45%), followed by Laura Ruderman (15%), Steve Hobbs (13%), Suzan DelBene (12%), Roger Goodman (10%), and Darshan Rauniyar (5%).

The poll, based on a random sample of 504 likely 1st CD primary voters, conducted by Lake Research Partners on behalf of the Burner campaign, between January 23-26, has a sampling error of +/- 4.4 percent. It also found that 54 percent of respondents "primary election voters who pick a Democratic candidate in the initial ballot" have a favorable opinion of Burner, while only 9 percent have an unfavorable opinion. So much for the "everybody hates Darcy" meme.

Again, campaigns tend to only release polling results when it's to their advantage. My understanding is that Suzan DelBene's campaign also had a poll in the field in January, and I've got a call in asking if they have different results. No word yet.

As I wrote following last week's candidate forum, it sure looked like the other Dems were running against Burner, as if she were the frontrunner, not DelBene, as has been widely presumed. So perhaps this polling data somewhat explains that dynamic?