It’s true. Here’s the memo on the poll, which was conducted by the Portland firm Grove Insight and found Dave Reichert beating Darcy Burner by only one percentage point (with a margin of error of +/- 4.9 percentage points).

That means that Burner and Reichert are now in a statistical dead heat, at least according to this poll.

I don’t know much about Grove or its reputation, but a quick Google search shows it to be mostly affiliated with liberal candidates. Perhaps that will make this survey dismissable as a “partisan poll.” But its findings are in line with those of another poll released earlier this month, which found Burner leading Reichert 49 percent to 46 percent (also within that poll’s margin of error).

Bottom line: Two separate polls in one month have shown newbie Burner and incumbent Reichert in a statistical dead heat, a pretty impressive feat for a previously unknown challenger like Burner.

Some findings from the Grove poll, which was commissioned by the Burner-endorsing group EMILY’s List:

* “Burner and Reichert are running neck and neck. Burner obtains support from 43% of voters, while Reichert garners 44% of the vote. Each candidate receives ‘strong support’ from about one-third of voters. Few voters — 13% — are still undecided. With the right resources, Burner could successfully beat the incumbent.”

* “While it is the case that [Reichert] is quite well known in his district and holds a significant advantage over Burner in name identification (46% Burner, 81% Reichert), he has not made many friends. More than four out of five voters can identify him, but his ratings are unimpressive (46% favorable, 35% unfavorable).”

* “In contrast, Darcy Burner, while less well-known, receives very respectable ratings from Eighth District voters (33% favorable, 13% unfavorable). She counts high propensity voters among her biggest fans. Her detractors are mostly Republicans, but even those gather in small numbers.”

* “Burner has significant opportunities to grow in her name identification among younger voters (especially women), parents, the less well-educated, and residents of Pierce County and Legislative Districts 25/33/45 and 41. Introducing her to these voters with a positive message will help boost her performance. Indeed, almost 70% of Congressional undecideds know little about her.”

* “In a generic congressional match-up, District 8 voters favor the Democratic candidate over the Republican candidate by a margin of 10 percentage points (44% Democrat, 34% Republican).”

* And Bush is wildly unpopular in the district, a good sign for Burner’s strategy of tying Reichert to the president at every opportunity: “[Bush’s] favorability ratings are poor (36% favorable, 59% unfavorable) and his job approval ratings are even worse (28% positive, 71% negative).”