McCain’s Big Convention Bounce: 10 Points Higher Than Obama Among Likely Voters
A new Gallup Poll finds that Republican Presidential candidate Sen. John McCain more than matched Democratic Presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama’s campaign bounce — and that McCain now has a solid lead among likely voters while his running-mate pick of Gov. Sarah Palin has virtually erased the important “enthusiasm” gap between the two parties.
If this holds over the next few weeks, it means that all previous assumptions about the race and this being the Democratic Party’s White-House-win year need to be swept off the table. It would mean that once again the U.S. would be faced with two parties evenly matched on several fronts battling tooth-and-nail to secure their party bases, peel off and independent voters and raise each others’ negatives. Another also notes another shift: more people now think McCain will win in November.
Gallup reports:
As the remarkable two-week stretch of back-to-back presidential nomination conventions ends, a weekend USA Today/Gallup Poll finds that the John McCain-Sarah Palin ticket has more than matched the Barack Obama-Joe Biden ticket’s convention bounce of last week with a “rebound” bounce, and in the immediate aftermath of the GOP convention McCain and Palin now have a slight edge over their opponents.
Obama’s lead has now disappeared totally, and McCain sits on a 4-point advantage among registered voters in the Friday through Sunday poll. That’s the largest advantage for McCain in either USA Today/Gallup Polls or Gallup Poll Daily tracking since May. The convention and/or McCain’s selection of Sarah Palin as his vice presidential running mate not only had the effect of moving the horserace needle in McCain’s direction, but also increased several measures of enthusiasm for the GOP.
And the enthusiasm gap? Democrats had been ahead 19 percent on this –and now it’s down to 7 percent, Gallup reports. But this is the one part that should concern Democrats:
The gap between registered voters and likely voters has once again enlarged in the McCain-Palin ticket’s favor in this poll. While the Republican ticket leads by 50% to 46% among registered voters, that lead stretches to a 54% to 44% lead among those Gallup sees as most likely to actually turn out and vote.
Meanwhile, a Survey USA Poll finds an important perception shift — important because it shows a shift in the conventional wisdom — that McCain will win the election in November.
To put all of this in context, be sure to check the list of polls at Pollster.com and at Real Clear Politics, which has McCain leading by 1.2 percent in its composite of polls.
UPDATE: The excellent poll analysis site FiveThirtyEight says poll watchers should be a little patient since bump polls reflect the fact that most people will react to the last big political event:
Among the many difficulties that we face in this unique election cycle is figuring out exactly how long one should expect a convention bounce to last. Under ordinary circumstances, bounces are actually fairly persistent, lasting for perhaps several weeks…
…Intuitively, that feels somewhat wrong to me. Most conventions are held over the summer, when the news cycle is much slower, and the convention gets to linger for longer as the last thing on voters’ minds. This does, however, raise an important point: political time is relative rather than absolute. If it feels like the Democratic Convention was a month ago — well, in political time, it might as well have been a month ago, since Sarah Palin and the Republican Convention displaced it as the first thing that voters will recall when they think about the election.
What I am saying, then, is that we should evaluate the robustness of the Republican bounce by how well it holds up to the currents of political time, rather than any specific date on the calendar. Specifically, I would want to see how the bounce holds up to the next major development of the campaign, particularly if it is a pro-Obama development. For example, let’s say that Colin Powell endorses Obama tomorrow morning. I might expect a fairly strong reaction to this in the polls, not because the endorsement is all that important unto itself (most endorsements aren’t), but because it displaces the GOP Convention as the most recent event of the campaign — it pushes political time forward. And if the polls didn’t move in reaction to such an endorsement, I’d think Democrats would have reason to worry.
And, Nate Silver adds, if there isn’t much real news the next few weeks McCain’s convention bounce could last.
The bottom line remains: this race is not the same as it was a few weeks ago. Reasons include the Palin pick, the reunification and re-energization of the Republican party and the continued inability to Democrats to completely unify (polls show more Republicans will vote for their party than Democrats and surfing around the Internet there are several pro-Hillary Clinton sites that make it clear that some Democrats want to see the Obama ticket defeated.)
14 Responses to “McCain’s Big Convention Bounce: 10 Points Higher Than Obama Among Likely Voters”
[...] Original JOE GANDELMAN, Editor-In-Chief [...]
Harold Ford and David Axelrod laid out the Obama campaign message this morning. It appears they have given up running against McCain/Palin and are trying to revamp the fight against Bush/Cheney.
Mika Brzezinski was groaning and hiding her head when these ineffective talking points were rolled out.
A campaign message needs to be something that the media can talk about while maintaining the interest of their viewers. While everyone is speaking positively about Sarah Palin for free, Obama will need to spend $50,000 per minute to get his message out.
Watch for the polls to continue this climb until there is something to change the media’s attention.
Even September polls just don't get me worked up. Come mid-October, I will pay more attention. But even then, the past few presidential elections have shown that the current polling methodologies no longer seem to be use as any kind of predictor of actual voting.
For what it is worth, given the combination of Hillary and racially motivated voters that will say one thing and do another, I think Obama will need a large lead in the final polls to really win. A small lead will not translate to the voting booth.
IMHO.
Just wait a week or two. Also, don't forget those debates.
Palin's selection by McCain gave the GOP campaign life and a much better (truly serious) chance to win by attracting voters, not merely as the “not Obama” choice.
Any overconfidence you had prior to Palin's selection should now be destroyed if you are rational. You're still in the lead, but it's no longer definitive (just observe and gauge views “on the street” for yourselves) and even with the media assisting your campaign (which risks a backlash in November if they misbehave too badly), you'll now have to work to maintain your lead, and not panic if you lose the lead later this year. Maybe you should work at trying to be more attractive to more voters other than by promising every group of voters imaginable all kinds of new benefits — if you want to attract those likely to be paying the taxes. (Besides, a lot of money has now been tied up with the federal takeover of Fannie and Freddy, money you now cannot expect to spend to buy votes. The only biggie you might suggest is a Big Three bailout, and you risk a backlash outside Detroit if you suggest that, so beware.)
Don't even _think_ of being so stupid as to try that “more Bush-Cheney” lie with the voters. McCain is no Bush, and Palin (who has opposed the oil companies) is no Cheney.
http://www.pollster.com/polls/2008president/
Steve – good point. It is the electoral college vote that counts.
BTW – after years of hearing about the 'unfairness' of a Republican winning the election while losing the popular vote, is it safe to assume that no one will change their stance in the unlikely event the opposite happens this time?
I for one will not. I still believe in the electoral college as the last, tiny bastion against ALL of American politics becoming populist.
I would also like to see the 17th Amendment repealed for the same reason, but that ain't ever going to happen
Steve,
Pollster is a good source and fairly accurately shows the trend line.
Their current electoral map is running on a lot of old polls, most taken in mid to late August. State by state polls are expensive, so most organizations wanted to wait at least 3 days after the convention to take a reading.
By the end of the week, we should see updated information that reflects the changing dynamic of the race.
A couple thoughts here:
1) Avoid the Gallup LV model like the plague. It had Bush with a 14 point edge in September 2004. It has a very high “beta,” which means it swings wildly. And the LV model is woefully off, relying as it does on a set of dubious statistical assumptions (voters under 26 are completely eliminated from the LV model, for example).
2) Gallup's RV model is better, but it still has the high beta.
3) This is a convention bounce. It always happens. In this case, with the conventions so close together you the loss of Obama's convention bounce and the arrival of McCain's convention bounce. It looks like a double bounce, then, when it's just a result of two conventions back to back.
4) Sunday's one-night sample has already dropped for McCain compared to Saturday's one-night peak. In Rasmussen, for example, McCain got a +4 reading on Saturday night. On Sunday night Obama got a +1. The convention bounce may have peaked already.
Let's wait until Thursday or Friday to see if this is sustainable in either tracker. I have no doubt that Palin helped solidify the GOP base. But polling up to now already showed McCain getting close to 90% of Republicans. What did it do for the middle? That we'll have to see.
I also believe the Bush-McCain strategy IS the best one. Why? Because McCain has not proposed anything SUBSTANTIVELY different from Bush. Rhetorically, John McCain offered a throwback to his 2000 self in his acceptance speech. He spoke of bipartisanship and he chastised his party for waste and fraud. But he never offered an example of what he'd cross the aisle on. In fact, the most high-profile example of him crossing the aisle – campaign finance reform and immigration reform – were completely absent from the speech – and from the campaign. At the end of the day, McCain-Palin offers nothing but GOP boilerplate policy.
Not a lie, according to McCain himself.
Looks like you're the stupid one trying to lie.
Elrod,
I agree that we won’t know anything until Thursday or Friday. If we only had access to the campaign’s internal polls, this would be a lot easier.
One clue was the direction the Obama campaign took today. It appears (probably through their internal polls and focus groups) that the “Change” message was lost to them and they are moving to the “Just like Bush/Cheney” theme.
Of course very few people here will admit it, but anyone watching Harold Ford and listening to David Axelrod would have to hear the panic in their voices. The Obama campaign was taken completely by surprise by the Palin pick and the public’s reaction to her.
Obama’s staff is struggling to find a way to stop the bleeding, which will lead to the mistake of overreaching. They are going to try to overblow something, and in the process will piss off more voters. The way Barack plays the next few weeks is the difference between a tight loss and a landslide for McCain/Palin.
I'm with AR here, and Elrod. The immediate post-bounce numbers are suspect and some of the models notoriously inaccurate. 538 has Obama already over the top with electoral votes, and pollster has him 11 short with 99 up for grabs. Again, I will take all of this with a pillar of salt for now. This is interesting, from fivethirtyeight:
There are some other interesting poll results. One in particular caught my eye. Since 2004, the majority of both parties (R-51% D 52%) and independents (55%) now favor churches keeping out of politics. The biggest gains in this position are from Republicans and independents. This is true even for those who say gay marriage and abortion are “very important” issues (as well as those who say they are “less important”).
“One clue was the direction the Obama campaign took today. It appears (probably through their internal polls and focus groups) that the “Change” message was lost to them and they are moving to the “Just like Bush/Cheney” theme.”
That doesn't make sense. “Change” IS moving away from “Bush/Cheney”. The Obama campaign is redoubling its efforts to shore up the accurate perception that a McCain presidency would include virtually all of the Bush/Cheney policies that have failed us. McSame is trying to pretend he represents “change.” Of course the Dems will point out relentlessly that he has promised and continues to press for a continuation of all the major policies of the last 8 years.
Elrod, what do you mean: “I also believe the Bush-McCain strategy IS the best one.”
“Best” for what? I don't think you mean the country.
Do you mean it is a good electoral strategy? Better than Obama's?!!
With regard to the polls, I agree with Elrod's cautionary note:
Folks should ask themselves why McCain…if he was supposedly within striking distance of Obama according to polls before the convention…went out on the limb to pick a “wild card” like Palin.
McCain clearly made a desperation pick, with minimal vetting, that clearly goes against his own ideological grain. He did not even talk to Palin until shortly before the pick. He is more of the Poppy Bush, establishment GOP cadre.
The only explanation for this is that the McCain team – regardless of the national polls – saw the fundamentals of the race against him.
Personally, I don't see how Palin – even though she excites the base – can alter the fundamentals of the race.
For example, I believe the argument that women will vote against Obama is stupid and sexist. My partner supported Hillary, and she will now vote for Obama, regardless of Palin's being a woman. The presumption that women across America will mindlessly vote for a woman is cynical and cretinous, IMHO.