With only nine weeks remaining in the presidential election, Republicans clearly hoped their national convention would give Mitt Romney a bounce that would leave him better positioned for November. So far, that's not even close to happening.
I put together this chart showing the last eight days of Gallup's daily tracking poll, including the results released this afternoon, and you'll notice a certain consistency to the results.
And I put together this chart showing the last seven days of Reuters' daily tracking poll (today's results are not yet available).
That's not a bounce; it's a hiccup. In Gallup's poll, Romney's in slightly worse shape than he was a week ago, and in Reuters' poll, he's in slightly better shape, but it's hard to characterize this as a meaningful post-convention bump in the polls.
Adding insult to injury, Gallup reports today that Romney's convention speech had the worst public response of any major-party acceptance speech since Bob Dole's 1996 remarks.
That said, there are few caveats to keep in mind.
First, in some instances, it takes more time to see a shift in the polls. The festivities wrapped up in Tampa four days ago, so it seems we'd probably start to see some kind of movement, but don't rule out the possibility of a delayed reaction.
Second, if the race's recent pattern holds, and voters are fairly locked in to their preferred candidate, President Obama may not see much of a post-convention bounce, either, suggesting the candidates will remain neck and neck for a while, probably until the debates.
For now, however, it's fair to say Republicans hoped to be in a much stronger position today than they are, and given the size of the "bounce," it looks like the 2012 Republican convention was a failure.
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That's what happens when you nominate a guy with all the "bounce" of a lead balloon.
I am consistently quite impressed by your headlines--while I'm not the biggest LL Cool J fan, the song is pretty catchy and the line works perfectly in this context. Bravo, Mr. Benen!
Take a look at the Iowa electronic markets: Romney has held steady in the vote share market (getting about 47% vs. 53% for Obama), but has lost three points in the winner-take-all market (getting now about 37% vs. about 63% for Obama compared to a 40-60 split before the Rep. convention). This is a negative convention bounce!
The GOP's problem is that they didn't say anything at the convention. As many people pointed out, Clint Eastwood's rambling, unrehearsed speech was the perfect symbol of the GOP: an old, out-of-touch white guy yelling at a made up, invisible version of Barack Obama.
What are their ideas on the economy? Strengthen it! Through hard work! And innovation! And efficiency! Wow, a bunch of meaningless buzzwords!
What are their ideas on foreign policy? Make America a force for good around the world! Afghani-whaaaa? Also, no more Arabs, legal or illegal!
Social policy? Voucher care! No more abortions, even if the pregnancy will kill you! Kill the poor!
Not exactly a shocker that they got no convention bounce. If you're a normal human being, tuned into reality, you'll vote for Obama. If you're a Fox News watching moron, you'll vote Romney. The vast majority of the swing voters will pick Obama, because the GOP has made social issues their main focus. It didn't work in 1992, or 1996, and it didn't even actually work in 2000 (Gore won, lest we forget that it took daddy's buddies on the SCotUS to get Bush installed in office.)
I am so pissed off. These blithering, blabbering idiots spew half-truths and misrepresentations about everything on FOX. In other words, put more simply, THEY LIE LIKE DOGS!
They sabotaged Presidents Obama's Presidency in the House and the Senate! In other words, they held a knife to the throat of America yet they wear flags on their lapels and ask the question... Are you better off today than you were four years ago?
WELL HELL YEA I am!
And I'll be better off 20 years from now, if I should live that long, if you donks aren't in any position to where you jeopardize this country with your power sick ideas.
Neck and neck: And that's why Republican voter suppression laws are so important to them.
No complacency - what happens after a billion or 2 dollars in saturation advertising all demonizing Obama over the next two months? Spending that Obama's side can't hope to match unless a few Democratic Adelson's go all in very soon. Overwhelming money worked in Wisconsin, that was the Citizen's United era test run.
On Friday, Maddow looked at a poll and said Romney got a 6 point convention bump. She said Obama went down by 4 and Romney went up by 2 and then she added the 4 and 2 and said Romney got a 6 point bump. That's what Maddow said.
You can't win a presidential election with a good convention, but you can sure as heck lose an election with a bad convention.
This was a bad convention.
How bad was it?
So bad that we're still talking about Clint Eastwood.
So bad that (come up with your own snappy punchline).
National polls are worthless, to get a true depiction of this "close race" go to electoral-vote.com(Obama leading Romney 332 to 206). Why is Rachel Maddow pushing a narrative that the election is basically tied?
Bounce? We should expect a bounce from a political convention?
I suppose there are about 83 likely voters who don't already know for whom they will cast their ballot. I don't know any of those people, but I will take it on faith that they exist. Except for those 83, we all know that this election is a watershed in terms of our country's future, and have a definite opinion about which path leading forward from Jan 2013 gives us a better chance to endure, if not prosper, as a society.
Of the 83, maybe 20 watch political conventions if their favorite show or sports team is not on the tube. Of the 20, maybe 10 think that is time well spent, and 10 doze off. The "convention addicted" probably like watching professional wrestling, too, as it is equally spontaneous and exciting. Of those 10, probably 3 will remember anything that was said by anyone about anyone and one will even remember what some commentator's opinion was of one or more rehearsed speeches, and he or she will probably think that commentator was off base or in the bag for the candidate.
So, statistically, what's the impact of 1-3 people changing their mind? Personally, I would vote for whichever party decided to cancel their convention and give the hundreds of millions spent on it to deserving high school kids whose parents didn't go beyond high school, in the form of full scholarships for college or to learn a trade or technical skill.
Seriously, though, Rachel. What's the point of a convention in these days, considering what our political process has devolved into? It used to be good TV when there was competition at the convention for the nomination. Now it's about as relevant and compelling as a royal wedding. Utter foolishness.
In 1936, the Literary Digest took a poll and predicted that Alf Landon would win. Franklin Rooselvelt won reelection by taking every state except Maine and Vermont. Is that a harbinger of 2012?
Last several moths I was paying attention to John McCain speeches and suddenly realize that
Barack Obama save the country by wining the election in 2008.
Barack Obama saved the world with his Stimulus Package, which is still realized by only few in our country, and now we need him to win this election to save both; our country and the world.
Josef Schneider