Reuters/Ipsos Poll: No Signs Yet of Convention Bounce for Obama As Some Say His Speech Was Blah

Sep 7, 2012 by JOE GANDELMAN, Editor-In-Chief

A Reuters/Ipsos poll taken before his speech last night finds no bounce yet for President Barack Obama yet — as you can start to see some consensus that the weakest major speech at the convention was the one delivered by Obama himself.

So far, U.S. President Barack Obama has not received much of a bounce yet in popular support from the Democratic National Convention, a Reuters/Ipsos poll found on Thursday.

The latest daily tracking poll found Republican Mitt Romney still clinging to a narrow lead of 45 percent to Obama’s 44 percent among likely voters. Romney had led by 46 percent to 44 percent in Wednesday’s poll.

“We’re not seeing a sort of glimmer, at this point, of a bump,” said Ipsos pollster Julia Clark.

The online survey included questions to voters on Wednesday before former President Bill Clinton’s well-received speech on the convention floor, so Clinton’s influence has not yet been taken into account.

Obama’s wife, Michelle Obama, delivered an electrifying speech on Tuesday, and those polled for the Thursday poll would have had the chance to have heard her.

Obama addresses the convention on Thursday night.

Clark said Obama could get a delayed bounce. Romney began his Tampa convention last week behind Obama, 46 percent to 42 percent, before taking a small lead.

Given the outcome in polling for both parties after the conventions, it may be what many analysts now suspect: most Americans now get a slew of information from other sources and are already divided into two groups who not just are unlikely to changing their minds but determined not to change their minds. This is reflected in the increasing ideological divide with how many Americans watch their cable news (MSNBC on the left, CNN in the middle, and Fox News on the right), the fact that some Americans will only visit websites they already agree with in the advance, and how American politics has increasingly come to resemble a form of political sports where each side sticks with their own political sports team.

Or, it could be that despite the reactions of many in the new and old media, that voters just were not moved by the kind of staging and predictably partisan (DUH) speeches at conventions.

The only note of hesitation here: as I noted in my post on initial polls on the GOP convention and as the Reuters writer notes, there always could be a delayed reaction and other polls have not weighed in yet. US News & World Report:

While former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney got no bounce out of his convention last week, I heard this week an interesting theory on why President Barack Obama might well get a boost from his convention here. If the three-day Democratic show can bring some disaffected members of the Obama coalition—people whose enthusiasm has faded but can still be inspired to come home—it could boost Obama’s poll numbers.

“There are more groups on the Democratic side who are not yet at their numbers they were at in 2008″ and so could be moved into Obama’s column by the convention, said Stan Greenberg at a panel of former senior presidential campaign strategists convened Thursday morning (well before Obama spoke) by National Journal and The Atlantic. “There are still groups that are receptive to the president that can move and I think this convention is geared to that.” Greenberg specified unmarried women. Microtargeting expert Laura Quinn said that “the folks who are not as enthused as they’ve been are younger voters … if the president’s speech talks about the future” that piece could fall into place. Added pollster Peter Hart: “Just based on the first two nights, Obama goes from the position of being on the defensive to I think a sense of being on the offensive.”

It’s an interesting argument and makes some sense, though I remain skeptical about whether this race is going to move very much in either direction between now and Election Day.

Not surprisingly, Team Obama has been downplaying a convention bounce.

The punditry is now starting to sound off on Obama’s speech and one thread: it was not his most enthralling. Mark Halperin predict this means the debates — for which both Romney and Obama are reportedly preparing for intensely already — will now taken on special importance:

The main goal of the Republican convention was to humanize Mitt Romney enough to make voters see him as an acceptable alternative. The main goal of the Democratic convention was to make voters think Barack Obama has good ideas to turn the economy around.

Perhaps the biggest two surprises in Charlotte were Obama’s failure to offer new or vivid specifics on what he would do to create more jobs if he is allowed to keep his own, and the relative weakness of his speech, arguably not even one of the best four of the convention. Bill Clinton, Michelle Obama, John Kerry, and Jennifer Granholm all gave rousing addresses that held the delegates’ attention more than Obama’s closing act.

The incumbent seemed to be playing it safe, stringing together a series of focus group tested lines that were mostly rehashes of comments on the stump. White House aides had suggested before Thursday night that the President would address his plans for the economy in a second term, but he took a pass. Obama is, of course, a gifted speaker, but given the importance of the event, his remarks were almost perfunctory, lacking substance, cohesiveness, or poetry, and elevated only by some moments of levity and a few nifty one-liners.

….Given the political cult of personality that exists around the Obama brand and the man himself, it is ironic that he was the weak link in Charlotte, even though the President might well receive a bigger convention bounce than Romney because of the overall program. The Democrats end this fortnight with a chance to widen their lead and it is unlikely they lost anything. For all the sound and fury in Tampa and Charlotte, Romney still has about the same amount of ground to make up as before. Now, the debates loom even larger, especially for the challenger.

Gallup is not showing a bump yet: its daily tracking poll puts Obama one point ahead of Romney, alhtough there is an improvement in Obama’s performace rating.

A round up of speech reaction is HERE.

Here’s the Pollster composite of all polls — which shows an utter dead heat:

UPDATE: NBC’s First Read:

And now we head to the post-convention polls, and perhaps the best way to look at any bounce isn’t by the head-to-head numbers, but rather by what each side set out to do. So for Romney, let’s look to see if his favorability numbers increase. And for Obama, let’s see if those enthusiasm/interest numbers go up.

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