“This wasn’t a lightning bolt convention. Comparatively speaking, this was a more muted convention in general … So it doesn’t surprise me that (the bump in polls) wasn’t a great deal bigger.”
~Ipsos pollster Julia Clark
All the pundits predicted that Romney would get a post-convention bounce like every candidate in history minus one. Some projected a 4 point bump … some projected a couple of points in terms of how much support Romney would get in polling.
Not so much apparently. Reuters-Ipsos has a daily rolling poll and during the beginning of the convention earlier in the week …the movement showed Romney taking a “lead” in the polling. After Romney’s speech – Obama “regained a narrow lead”. That doesn’t bode well for Romney. Now – it is all in the margin of error but this is seriously underwhelming and not a good sign for Romney. I wonder how much of this incredibly disappointment can be linked to media organizations FINALLY calling out the Romney/Ryan campaign for its overt dishonesty and lies like after Paul Ryan’s speech HERE.
Reuters has the news HERE:
Democratic President Barack Obama regained a narrow lead on Saturday by 44 percent to 43 percent over his Republican challenger, former Massachusetts Governor Romney, in the latest daily installment of the four-day rolling poll.
Romney was ahead by one point in Friday’s online poll and two points in Thursday’s survey as his campaign came under a blaze of media attention at the convention in Tampa, Florida.
In his acceptance speech on Thursday, Romney urged voters to get behind him and help rebuild the economy. His address followed three days of speeches by Republicans, including testimonies from Romney’s relatives and friends aimed at improving the image of a candidate who is often seen as stiff or aloof.
Nate Silver from the NY Times says that tracks with other polls as well more or less HERE:
The most sluggish of the tracking polls is from Gallup, which reports its results over a lengthy seven-day window. That means that only about half its interviews occurred after the start of the convention, and a smaller fraction than that will represent people surveyed after Mr. Romney’s acceptance address.
However, the trend so far in the Gallup poll is a bit disappointing for Mr. Romney; the survey still shows Mr. Obama one point ahead. By comparison, the Gallup poll has had a 46-46 tie on average over the past 60 days.
We’ll need to wait another day or two before we can make a more confident judgement on the size of Mr. Romney’s bounce, but the information we have so far points toward its being a little underwhelming.
And the National Journal says the ratings are down significantly except for Fox (what a surprise) HERE:
Yet again, Fox News dominated in the 10-11 p.m. slot, doubling the next competitor with almost 9.1 million viewers. The next closest was ABC with 4.4 million viewers. The next nearest cable network was CNN with 2.3 million viewers.
Not surprisingly, all the networks had drop-offs from their 2008 numbers. NBC’s fell by 56 percent with its audience. CNN also had an over 50 percent fall from 2008. Fox News had the least amount of drop off as they were almost flat compared with the record breaking 2008 introduction of Sarah Palin.
And I think that is a real problem for the Republican party. Fox News is preaching to the choir in an echo chamber; people who watch Fox News by and large already vote Republican. So – one could argue that the base is paying attention. But – the moderates and independents that Romney needs to win over just aren’t that into him. It’s like – I could watch Romney’s speech … or I could shampoo my hair; yeah – herbal extracts sounds better.
