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August 31, 2012 11:14 PM UTC

GOP Convention Fail: No Poll Bump for Romney

  • 28 Comments
  • by: Mark Mehringer

( – promoted by Colorado Pols)

I have been warning my polling clients for the last couple months to expect the usual bump in poll numbers for Republicans during the GOP convention.  But here is the funny thing, according to Gallup’s daily tracking poll  (the gold standard in polling), Romney has not seen any convention bump – or any sort of boost in support from naming Ryan as his running mate.  Nothing – not even one percentage point.

To be fair, Gallup reports a 7-day rolling tracking poll for President, so through Thursday night, only 3 of the 7 nights in the poll reflect the GOP convention.  But you should see at least some change.

In fact, Obama has actually risen 2 points since Romney chose Ryan for his running mate.  And that is in a poll with a 2 point margin of error.

So what does this mean for the election just over two months away?  Romney has now been defined and the polls should remain relatively stable until the debates, and possibly through November 6.

At the end of the Republican primary fight, Romney was largely an unknown to many Democrats and most independents.  The hundreds of millions of dollars of ad spending over the summer has introduced Romney to those voters.  I consider this to be largely a success of the Obama campaign.  Voters are split on their view of Romney.  He has been unsuccessful in defining himself as a new, inspirational leader to bring us out of tough times.

In many ways, this appears to be a similar race as we saw in 2004, with the partisan roles flipped.  Back in 2004, President Bush was up for reelection with fairly weak approval and economic numbers.  Obama’s ratings today are pretty similar.  

Back in 2004, a rich white guy (John Kerry) from Massachusetts won the opposition party’s nomination.  He picked another white guy as his running mate.  Pretty much exactly the same thing here.  

And in 2004, it was a close race to the end, just as it is here.  But at no point did Kerry (and do I think Romney) will surge ahead.

In the Post-9/11 world, Americans are fairly risk averse.  In 2004, they did not want to risk another 9/11.  In 2012, they don’t want to risk another 2008 style economic collapse.  

The GOP convention gave Romney the opportunity to portray himself more like Bill Clinton did in 1992 – as someone with a new approach to help us overcome a tepid recovery.  Romney passed on that opportunity, and instead took the less risky approach of attacking the status quo but offering nothing new to replace it.  And as a result, his standing in the polls is the same as it was at the beginning of the month – barely behind.

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28 thoughts on “GOP Convention Fail: No Poll Bump for Romney”

  1. Romney entered the week four points behind Obama in the first installment of a Reuters/Ipsos rolling poll, with Obama leading 46 percent to 42 percent.

    But the most recent daily rolling poll gave Romney a two-point lead of 44 percent to 42 percent among likely voters.

    No new lead outside the margin of error here but there may be changes in new polls showing up in coming days. Still, you’re right. It certainly doesn’t seem as though anything all that much is happening for Mittens in the wake of the convention.  

  2. http://www.examiner.com/articl…

    The most recently-released poll was done by Reuters-Ipsos and shows that Romney leads President Obama by 2%. Romney has 44% to Obama’s 42%. Just prior to the Convention, Obama had 46% to Romney’s 42%. The slight change in polling results was enough to now give Romney the edge.

    Another poll showed that Romney is somewhat more likable following the Convention. His likeability rate was 26% prior to the Convention but has notched up to 30%.

    According to polls, highlights of the week included speeches given by aspiring First Lady Ann Romney, vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan, and former U.S. Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice.

    I knew the odds of Colorado Pols not having a front page story on the lack of a convention bounce were close to zero. Too bad I couldn’t find anybody to take the bet.

    1. only had a single data point previous to the convention since the polling was a one-off set of 4 days of rolling online polls starting just before the convention with the latest results from Thursday. That’s not particularly convincing as far as figuring out what sorts of trends are going on. Your interpretation that there may have been a bump may be right, but the basis on a simple before and after picture seems pretty shaky.

      1. what’s all over the media has gone from Ryan’s lies to Clint’s hijinks interrupted only occasionally by any coverage of Romney himself.  

        Well, there is one really popular new Romney clip. It’s the one where he mistakenly (Freudian slip style?) refers to the country as a “company” as in he’s going to turn this company around.  Considering his usual method; load with debt, extract profit, move profit offshore, allow company to crumble into bankruptcy, rinse repeat, I’m thinking he might be more comfortable as the dictator of a nice little third world Klepto-plutocracy than as President of the United States of America.  

    4. Willard’s stock has almost dropped 8 points SINCE the big convention.  

      Why would that be?  It was so awesomely awesome!

      Funny (crazy old uncle) Clint in prime time, warm (if not convincing) Ann, tough inspiring Ryan–didn’t get stuck at his McDonalds job because he has ambition (rich daddy); and trying-too-hard-to-be-a-real-person, Willard Mittens “I’ll say whatever the voters want me to say, Wolf, and yes my fist name IS Mitt!” RMoney.  

      Still time to join the winning team ArapaGOP.  Its OK, you tried, we tried, he tried…its OK to change your mind.

  4. Polls released today include several days of data (as you note) — but only ONE of those polling days was after the Ryan speech, and ZERO of those days were after the Romney speech. So…

    1) Yes, we can say the Ryan pick produced no discernible bump; since the Ryan pick, recent Reuters/Ipsos polling shows Romney up, but recent Gallup/Rasmussen shows Romney down (these were the polls that variously showed 2-4 point leads for Romney but now show a tie or 1-point race) — really, a wash.

    2) No, we don’t know crap about whether the Ryan or Romney speeches — the meat of the convention — moved the dial.

    2. Three days of speeches should have an impact, not just one speech by Romney, and some thing about a chair.

      Also, a significant shift after Romney’s speech WOULD move the Gallup numbers at least one point, even if it only accounted for one night of interviews out of seven.

      That said, I doubt the Democrats and Obama will get much of a bump, either.  I think the reality here is that the campaign used to get started with the conventions.  Now it’s more like halftime.  

  6. “Did you watch it? What do you think of Eastwood?” Those are the two questions around the office. No one. Absolutely no one even mentioned Romney and his speech. The known Republicans did not want to talk about “the chair”. Overall, it was one fine convention about something, and that something was not the Republican candidate for president.

  8. By Sunday/Monday we’ll see the full effect, whatever that is.

    I’m guessing the bounce will be muted; the follow-up to the convention is Labor Day weekend; lots of people getting away and enjoying anything but politics, no hype to be had.  Also, Romney’s speech was meh, and Ryan’s speech was torn apart by the media for its lies.

    Then we head to Charlotte and the DNC, and the poll bounce will unbounce for Romney.

    I think Intrade is indicative; they don’t have the lead time of a poll, and they’re down 8 points on Romney…

  9. “I think it was Mitt Romney’s poll bounce.”

    “Hmph. Not much more than a well-trammeled dead squirrel on the road, really…”

    So it’s now Tuesday morning, and the tracking polls have all been through a sizable portion of post-convention respondents.  Mitt Romney’s poll bounce: nowhere to be found, and certainly nothing so far outside of the margin of error.

    Rasmussen shows a sudden uptick for Romney of about 3 points, but they also show a sudden increase in Republicans in their polls of the same 3 points. Gallup shows nothing for Romney except really crappy speech ratings numbers.

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