A new poll from the liberal blog site DailyKos.com, conducted by Research 2000, shows U.S. Rep. John Shadegg (R-Phoenix) currently besting challenger Bob Lord by nine points.

The poll, released Saturday, shows Shadegg up 48 points to 39 points over Lord. It has a margin of error of 5 points, and was taken among 400 likely voters in the 3rd Congressional District. 

Shadegg, who is set to debate Democrat Lord and Libertarian candidate Michael Shoen Monday night on the PBS affiliate, KAET (Channel 8), was virtually tied with Lord in a poll taken over the same period and released by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. That poll showed Lord with a one-point lead, 45 percent to 44 percent, while Shoen drew five percent of the vote.

The DailyKos poll did not include Shoen, which the editors said was a mistake.

"We screwed up in the Research 2000 poll by not including the Libertarian candidate," was the blunt caveat in the DailyKos story.

The Libertarian candidate in the 3rd district usually gets between two and four percent of the vote, which would likely come from among Shadegg voters rather than those supporting Lord.

Asked if the campaign was happy with the DailyKos poll results, Andrew Eldredge-Martin, Lord's campaign manager, said, "Absolutely."

"If you've got four or five percent of the vote for the Libertarian candidate Michael Shoen, you see shadegg’s support at the 44 or 45 [percent] level," said Eldredge-Martin. "This is a race that’s neck-and-neck."

Eldredge-Martin made it clear that the Lord campaign feels that taking the lead will mean further tying Rep. Shadegg to Pres. Bush and attacking him on the economy.

"We just need to keep communicating our message to voters that Congressman Shadegg's record of representing party over country... is not going to help us get out of the financial crisis we're in," Eldgredge-Martin said. "[Shadegg's] type of blind deregulation will be a continuation of the disastrous Bush policies that got us here in the first place."

The Shadegg campaign did not respond to a request for comment.