Now that the horse race is off and running in the 5th Congressional District — after a lengthy turn into two courtrooms that almost ejected incumbent U.S. Rep. Doug Lamborn from the track — the field has rounded the poll showing Lamborn ahead by 10 lengths.

We mean polling points. Our racing metaphor seems to be running on a sloppy track since we read Magellan pollster David Flaherty’s analysis of their findings.

Here’s the raw poll numbers from 591 likely Republican and independent voters in the June 26 election, with a 4 percent margin of error.

37% Doug Lamborn
27% Darryl Glenn
10% Owen Hill
3% Tyler Stevens
2% Bill Rhea
21% Undecided

It appears Lamborn has a strong 10-point lead with ballots set to be mailed in two weeks. However, Flaherty says it’s a two-horse race although Lamborn has the inside track.

The incumbent has beaten back well-financed challengers in 2012 and 2008, has a strong image rating and solid job approval rating. But Flaherty says there’s enough time for Glenn to close the distance.

All he has to do is sweep the undecideds or steal Hill’s base and he can scoot by Lamborn.

As for Owen, the polling analysis said this:

Owen Hill’s image rating is clearly worse than Doug Lamborn or Darryl Glenn’s. Fifty-five percent of voters either have no opinion or have never heard of him. Among the 45% of voters that have an opinion of him, 24% have a favorable opinion and 21% have an unfavorable opinion of him. If Owen Hill is going to be competitive in this election these numbers need to improve significantly and quickly, with ballots being returned in just over two weeks there is very little time to make that happen.

We’ll have to wait until Election Day to find out.