Tuesday marked the "real" kickoff of the Republican National Convention, and with it, we will start to hear endless and breathless speculation about the extent to which the three-day event will aid the political fortunes of one Willard Mitt Romney and one Paul Ryan.
Yes, Wrap readers, I am talking about "the Bounce." Is it real? Will there be one this time around? Those questions will get my attention, but not until after the jump.
But, first, on to the numbers:
PRESIDENTIAL GENERAL ELECTION TRIAL HEATS:
NATIONAL (CBS News): Obama d. Romney (46-45)
NATIONAL (Gallup Tracking): Romney d. Obama (47-46)
NATIONAL (Ipsos/Reuters): Obama d. Romney (46-42 LV; 45-39 RV)
NATIONAL (PPP for Daily Kos/SEIU): Obama d. Romney (50-44)
NATIONAL (Rasmussen Tracking): Obama d. Romney (47-45)
CONNECTICUT (Quinnipiac): Obama d. Romney (52-45)
IOWA (PPP): Obama d. Romney (47-45)
DOWNBALLOT POLLING:
CT-SEN (Quinnipiac): Linda McMahon (R) 49, Chris Murphy (D) 46
CT-05 (Global Strategy Group for DCCC): Elizabeth Esty (D) 44, Andrew Roraback (R) 35
NV-SEN (PPP): Sen. Dean Heller (R) 47, Shelley Berkley (D) 45
NC-08 (OnMessage for the Hudson campaign): Richard Hudson (R) 38, Rep. Larry Kissell (D) 37
RI-01--D (Fleming and Associates): Rep. David Cicilline 43, Anthony Gemma 31
A few thoughts, as always, await you just past the jump ...
If you take the five polls released today and average them together, you'd have an Obama advantage of between 2.4-2.8 percentage points, depending on whether you prefer to utilize the RV or LV numbers out of that Ipsos/Reuters poll. Since the Republican National Convention is now in full swing in Tampa, this margin might serve us well as the "before" picture of the state of the race pre-conventions.
It has long been an article of faith, and one supported by data, that conventions typically provide a boost in support for the party that is conducting it. Bounces can be great or small, and can provide lasting support to a campaign or a merely transient boost. Political science professor Thomas M. Holbrook, writing for Pollster, forecasted earlier in the week that he expected Mitt Romney to get a bounce of about 3.6 percent, while he expected the president to get a much smaller jolt (1.1 percent).
There are reasonable arguments to be made that this week's RNC could provide a sizable bump for the red team, or nary any bump at all. Here are some possible explanations for you to keep in your quiver when the bounce is either sky-high, or nonexistent:
Romney/Ryan got a huge bounce because:
1. Paul Ryan is one of the lesser-defined figures to appear on a national ticket in decades. If he can introduce himself to the American electorate, and do it well, he could give Romney a boost. Many of the polls I have seen break the electorate roughly into thirds: one-third like Ryan, one-third don't like him, and one-third have no opinion of him. That's a fairly large pool of persuadable viewers, all in all.
2. They are somehow able to close the "empathy gap." I'm hugely skeptical that they'll be able to make Mitt Romney "likable," but right now that is, far and away, his largest political liability. It was at the core of Charlie Cook's column last week, which made the hard-to-impeach notion that presidents almost never get reelected with voters in the mood that they are presently in. That Barack Obama still, on average, polls in the lead over Mitt Romney is a telling sign of how little the American electorate believes in Romney. This is the GOP's biggest, and damned near last, chance to correct that.
Romney/Ryan got little to no bounce because:
1. The cake is already baked. One school of thought, of which I am something of an adherent, is that there are just an unusually low number of undecided voters in this election cycle. If the pool of persuadable voters is atypically small, it follows logically that the bounces from the conventions will also be diluted. By the way, this explanation applies if neither side receives a convention bounce of any real size, unlike the next explanation.
2. The more the voters see Mitt, the less they like Mitt. It may be a coincidence (though most Wrap readers would dispute that), but Barack Obama's best numbers of the 2012 election cycle, both in national and state polling, came when Mitt Romney was front and center in the national conversation during the primary campaign. While he does benefit now from the lack of splintered loyalties in the Republican Party, one has to wonder if Romney, given his uneven performance on the stump and in debates during the primary cycle, can make it through the week, to say nothing of all the way to November, playing error-free ball.
In other polling news ...
- Nate Silver gets the award for the "best read of the day" for his look at the recent scattered polling out of Michigan. In the piece, he offers an amazing revelation. The recent Mitchell Research poll (which showed Obama tied and Democratic Sen. Debbie Stabenow trailing) had only eight percent African-Americans in its sample. The amazing revelation? That was by design. The head of Mitchell Research intentionally kept the A-A share of the vote far below both the census estimates of the state's black population, and the estimates from the 2008 exit polls. Why? Because Steve Mitchell (who is a home-state pollster) said he didn't believe the exit polls or the census estimates of the state were correct. Pretty amazing (and somewhat ballsy) for this guy to essentially admit he is basing his sample on his own gut instinct of what the state electorate will look like.
- Connecticut is rapidly becoming one of the more intriguing states on the agenda in the Fall. Quinnipiac echoed last week's Rasmussen poll there (which I, admittedly, mocked a bit), showing McMahon up by a three-point margin. In 2010, California Republican Meg Whitman made a similar attempt to win an office by flooding the zone with advertising bought by self-funding to the tune of 8-9 figures. Eventually, she went well past the point of saturation, and faded at the close to lose handily to Jerry Brown. One wonders if the same trajectory will save Chris Murphy's Senate bid, or whether the $65 million (and counting) has successfully defined Murphy before his more modestly funded campaign can define itself. There is also a slight chance this poll is off a bit, since it has Barack Obama at what would seem to be an awfully small lead over Mitt Romney (52-45). However, the president has actually been fairly weak in recent polling here, with very diverse polling outfits (Q, Rasmussen, and PPP) all showing the Obama advantage in single digits.
- In Rhode Island, embattled freshman Rep. David Cicilline (D) seems to be increasingly likely to fend off a primary challenge from conservative Democrat Anthony Gemma. The latest Fleming and Associates poll shows Cicilline up by a 12-point margin (43-31), which is a considerable improvement over the last Fleming poll in the 1st district. A spring poll had Gemma within a four-point margin (40-36). However, there is a real cautionary note within this new poll: At present, just over half of Gemma's supporters say they would defect and support Republican Brendan Doherty. With Rhode Island being among the final states to hold a primary election, that does not give Cicilline much time to mend fences before the general election, which follows less than two months after his battle with Gemma.