A new poll, conducted by the somewhat secretive Bud’s PAC (named after Bud Doggett), has D.C. Council Chairman Vincent Gray eight points ahead of Mayor Adrian Fenty in the mayoral race, according to a political operative with whom some results were shared.

LL has not seen the poll first hand, hasn’t seen the crosstabs and doesn’t know what the actual questions were what or the margin of error is. Or, for that matter, what firm conducted the survey. Which is to say, please take these results with a giant grain of salt. But hey, this is a blog! So here’s what the spy shared with LL:

Gray: 42

Fenty: 34

Leo Alexander: 2

Someone else (Faith?!) 1

Undecided: 21

Also of note: Gray’s favorability rating was 72 percent, compared to Fenty’s 49 percent. The unfavorable rating was 13 percent for Gray, 44 percent for Fenty.

The poll showed there were 49 percent of those polls were undecideds in the council chairman’s race, where At-Large Councilmember Kwame Brown had 30 percent compared to Vincent Orange‘s 21 percent.

And that brohaha over name recognition at the Ward 4 straw poll in the at-large race seems to be playing a big factor, with shadow Sen. Michael D. Brown pulling in 24 percent, compared with Phil Mendelson‘s 34 and Clark Ray‘s 8 percent.

LL’s spy said that 1,175 calls were placed between Aug. 4-9. Campaign finance records show Bud’s PAC paid $15,000 to Successful Capitol Strategies for “polling/mailing list” on July 30.

LL will update when he can get reps from both campaigns on the horn.

* Again, LL is relying on a trusted spy with these numbers. Please don’t take them as gospel.

File photo by Darrow Montgomery