Not with his opponent, GOP state Sen. Robert Hurt, but with the automated polling outfit SurveyUSA.

At issue are two recent SurveyUSA polls that show Perriello not just trailing Hurt—it’s widely acknowledged that Perriello is in danger of losing his seat—but losing by landslide margins. An early September survey showed Hurt leading by a staggering 26-percentage-point margin while another poll conducted this week showed Hurt leading Perriello by nearly as much—23 percent.

Now, Perriello’s campaign and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee are fighting back, releasing memos designed to undermine the SurveyUSA numbers and producing their own internal polls that show the race for the conservative-oriented 5th District far closer.

On Wednesday, Perriello’s campaign provided reporters with a memo from campaign pollster Pete Brodnitz noting that a survey it conducted earlier this month showed Hurt leading Perriello 46 percent to 44 percent, and that a separate poll this month conducted by the Democratic firm Global Strategy Group had Hurt leading Perriello by a similar 44 percent to 42 percent margin.

“SurveyUSA’s polls have been a consistent outlier in the race for Virginia’s 5th Congressional District,” wrote Brodnitz.

The disparity between the SurveyUSA polls and the campaign’s own numbers is no small matter: the hardening of a narrative that Perriello is losing by a wide margin could have serious consequences for his fundraising and voter turnout efforts.

The DCCC, for its part, reinforced the Perriello pushback with its own press release highlighting the Brodnitz and Global Strategy Group polls, and by noting that a third survey, conducted by the conservative-oriented American Action Forum in July, had Hurt leading Perriello by a modest six-point margin.

“High-quality, reliable polling done by Democrats and Republicans have shown this race to be neck-and-neck with a clear path to victory for Representative Tom Perriello,” said Jesse Ferguson, a DCCC spokesman, said in the release.

The Brodnitz memo went even further, noting that the newest SurveyUSA figures suggest that seven percent of likely voters have already cast ballots, while the Virginia Board of Elections reports that only 329 absentee ballots have been returned and only 277 early vote ballots have been cast.

“If SurveyUSA’s numbers were actually correct, it would show less than 1% of the electorate has already voted,” Brodnitz writes in the memo

Democratic operatives are also quick to point to a September column by political handicapper Stu Rothenberg, who described the early September SurveyUSA poll as “bizarre” and wrote that “the numbers were a joke.”

In an e-mail, SurveyUSA Editor and CEO Jay Leve challenged the Perriello campaign to release the questionnaire and crosstabs from the Brodnitz survey, adding: “If they won’t release the full crosstabs to you, write about why they won’t.”

The Perriello campaign declined to provide further details into their polling, with spokeswoman Jessica Barba saying: “The problem is with SurveyUSA’s methodology—it has nothing to do with our poll.”

“They are just trying to distract from the troubling fact that their early voting numbers are mathematically impossible,” she added.

Chris LaCivita, a Hurt campaign consultant, was quick to point out that regardless of the debate over the SurveyUSA data, Perriello’s own poll numbers showed him at well below 50 percent and trailing Hurt – perilous territory for an incumbent.

“He should start with his own pollster,” said LaCivita. “He can’t even find a poll with him over 44 percent.”