September 08, 2012 01:17 AM UTC

Early Polls Show Signs of Obama Convention Bump

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• by: Mark Mehringer

( – promoted by Colorado Pols)

With the 2012 Democratic National Convention having come to a close last night, pollsters like me turn to the public poll results to see what kind of bump in support each candidate has received.  Last week, I noted that the GOP convention failed to give Romney any kind of meaningful boost.  Looking back on the last week of polls (I prefer to rely on high quality ones like the daily tracker conducted by Gallup), that still appears to be the case, though an average of public poll results suggest a minor increase in support for Romney of maybe 1 point.

According to the 7-day tracking poll (http://www.gallup.com/poll/150743/Obama-Romney.aspx) conducted by Gallup, though, there was absolutely no change at all in the race for President during and just after the GOP convention.  It showed the same result for the last week – a 47% Obama / 46% – until last night.

Gallup’s latest results show Obama expanding his lead to 48% O / 45% R.  Those results include several days of pre-Democratic convention polling.



Another poll result from Gallup suggests an even wider lead for Obama is on the way…

The 3-day Gallup tracking poll results for Obama’s approval rating have jumped from a low of 43% approval at the end of the Republican convention, to 52% in their latest measure.

This swing in Obama’s approval ratings clearly suggests that over the next few days, Gallup’s poll results should continue to show growth in Obama’s support.  Other public polls will almost certainly confirm this result.

That said, I’d be surprised if Obama’s support grew much higher than 50%, or if Romney’s fell below 45% for more than a day or two at most.  Even in Obama’s landslide victory of 2008, his popular vote total fell short of 53%.

But a 50% to 45% race is a substantial margin in these highly partisan times, as there are few swing voters out there to shift the race one way or another.

Unlike previous years when candidates waited until the convention to start their campaigns, this year the campaign ads have been running for months.  And the result thus far appears to be a small, consistent Obama lead, both in national polls and state by state totals that estimate where the Electoral College will end up.