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Early indications are that the Republican National Convention was mostly a dud and did almost nothing to change the state of the Presidential Race.
Mitt Romney’s acceptance speech draw a much smaller audience than in the past. According to Nielson rating about 33 million people watched the speech on TV, a 17 percent drop from John McCain’s 2008 speech. People watching on the internet may account for a small amount but probably not all of that drop.
In addition to not generating much excitement, Romney’s speech received relatively poor reviews from Americans. According to Gallup about as many said the speech made them more likely to vote for Romney, 40 percent, as said it made them less likely, 38 percent. That is very poor by historic standards. From Gallup:
![Does what you saw or read of this week's Republican/Democratic convention make you more likely or less likely to vote for [Republican nominee/ Democratic nominee for president]?](http://sas-origin.onstreammedia.com/origin/gallupinc/GallupSpaces/Production/Cms/POLL/slcvq1sia0iz0ayvese3zg.gif)
Most importantly there doesn’t seem to have been any bounce for Romney in the horse race polling. The Gallup daily tracking poll remains basically unchanged. In addition some of the early polling in swing states like Florida show basically no movement towards Romney.
It will be interesting to see if Obama gets any bounce after his convention. The lack of a bounce for Mitt Romney could be a result of Republicans having done a poor job with the convention or just a byproduct of the fact that the vast majority of voters made up their minds extremely early in this election.
19 Comments
Heh. I happened to walk into my bedroom the night of Romney’s speech and catch the tail end of a ‘news’ report from The 700 Club. My wife had left the TV on ABC Family.
The reporter was talking about how it would take a few weeks for the impact of the convention to move the polls. Of course we all know this isn’t true.
I found it hilarious that the fundies were running interference for RMoney just a couple hours after his big speech.
Romney is the quintessential corporate aristocrat Jefferson warned America about. His record indicates it. That’s what America understands….
“Corporations are people, my friend.” Given the views of Jefferson and Madison concerning corporations, they where anything but “people,” or “human?” So Mr. Romney do you believe “negroes are inferior,” considering your stance on corporations as people is as rancid, intellectually as Justice Taney’s assertion that “Dred Scott,” being Negro, is inferior therefore not entitled to protection of law, hence considered property, with no due process?
Whose next woman? Enemy combatants, as deemed by fascists?
A flat “ball” does not bounce when it hits the ground. No amount of on the road emergency canned tire fixer-upper can plug the hole in this nutsack’s ball….
If it weren’t for the ineptitude of and/or corruption in the Democratic Party over the last four years, the Republican Party would no longer exist or at least would have been reduced to irrelevancy.
Heckuva job, Barry.
Maybe Romney would have received a bounce if he promised to end Obama programs like assassinating Americans without any sort of trial, or locking people up forever based only upon suspicion of guilt.
It’s called a dead cat bounce …heh,heh ,heh
I think the fundies have been running interference for Rmoney ever since he became the clear winner.
The heck of it is, if you look at pro-life positions, Barry is more pro-life than Mitt. Barry is more Christian than Mitt IMO. But they only look at abortion.
Barry is also more pro-family than Mitt. But same sex family’s count AGAINST pro-family for those clowns.
Boxturtle (Mitt is more pro-Israel than Obama, though)
x2.
Boxturtle (mourns for opprtunity lost)
Abner sez: *backear*
There are very few undecided voters, so any convention bounces will be small (don’t look for a big bounce for the Democrats, either).
Barring an outside event (market crash, etc.), Romney had two chances to move the polls – VP announcement and convention. Nada.
Obama will probably get a small (couple of points) bounce from the convention. He will get a bigger bounce from the debates. I doubt that even Biden will lose badly against Ryan.
The Constitution Party made it onto the ballot in Virginia. Romney can’t win there, now. Without Virginia he has no path to the White House. Well, I suppose he could sign up for the tour or something.
Conventions are such an anachronism, I actually doubt in the coming years they will be bouncing anybody. Especially now with primaries going on so long and the shear number of debates.
Im a political junkie and even I find them boring as hell.
Monticello.org gives a bunch of quotations attributed to Jefferson about banks and corporations and says Jefferson never said them.
http://www.monticello.org/site/jefferson/private-banks-quotation
As I posted in a reply to you yesterday, snopes does the same.
http://www.snopes.com/quotes/jefferson/banks.asp
and unless those “undecideds” live in 3 – 4 states they are irrelevant anyway
I don’t think you can compare the two conventions “bounce-wise.”
Romney and Ryan were introducing themselves and their policies to voters.
If Romney/Ryan did a good job, they should have gotten a bounce, the way that McCain Palin did.
Obama and Biden, however, have already been in office for almost four years. They could do a flawless job this week and still not get a bounce.
It’s one of those things that seem similar on the surface, namely two nominating conventions, but the two are really not comparable.
Moreover, last time, Obama/Biden did not get much of a bounce and McCain/Palin did. IIRC, part of the reason the Democratic ticket did not get such a big bounce was that their convention was first and everyone initially loved them some Sarah Palin, especially the RW neo theo base and some PUMAs. In any event, the bounce was not a measure of who was going to win the election.
Finally, any poll based on the popular vote is most likely useless as a predictor of the Presidential election, unless maybe one ticket or the other pulls ahead by a huge margin–and even then, I would want to see the electoral vote count.
I heard that twelve counties decide the Presidential election.
Convention bounces are so last century. Both red and blue are fighting over approx. 900K people spread over ten states. Was there anyone watching the RNC last week who wasn’t already in the Romney camp?
Just realized you made my point earlier. I’m a solid Dem and I have better things to do than watch the DNC convention. I don’t even have cable, so it’s moot.
Maybe they’re not planning to get elected. At all.
And if the computers in those counties are rigged in just the right way…
President Obama’s job approval average for each of the last 5 weeks in the very same 7-day Gallup Daily tracking poll that Jon referenced is:
44%, 46%, 45%, 45%, and 45%.
How do those those numbers measure up for an incumbent president seeking reelection…by “historic standards”?
Romney’s “bounce” aside…
It’s clear that President Obama has his own problems, isn’t it?