Gallup's daily tracking poll is out, and just like yesterday, Obama is +8 with a 49-41 lead. While I'm sure we'd like to see better numbers, taking into account all the circumstances I think this is very good news.
The current results are based on Aug. 27-29 interviewing, which includes two nights of polling during the convention and one post-convention night on Friday. The Friday interviewing was conducted in an unusual political environment -- the first conducted fully after Obama's well-regarded acceptance speech and McCain's surprise announcement of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his vice presidential running mate. Each event in isolation has usually been associated with increased candidate support for the relevant party. On this day -- with strong partisan forces pushing the public in both directions -- Obama still polled better than he had been prior to the convention, but not as well as he was polling on the individual nights of the convention.
The poll reveals that Obama's numbers took a bit of a hit yesterday, but he couldn't have taken much of a hit considering the numbers are exactly the same as the night before.
I know that a lot of people are going to be extremely worried that we didn't get even better the numbers the night right after Obama's historic speech. But there are a couple of things that would have made that sort of bounce impossible under the circumstances:
- The Palin Pick: Don't get me wrong, I think that this is a terrible pick for McCain and its not going to help him in the long term, especially when the American people get an idea of how much of a whackjob she is. BUT, the pick did make a splash and it pushed Obama's speech from the dominating news coverage it otherwise would have had. Sure, something like 38 million people saw the speech, but that still leaves almost 90% of the American public that didn't see it, and the Palin pick robs us of the coverage the speech otherwise would have had. So while this was probably a bad pick for McCain, the timing was perfect.
- Its a weekend: Now, I haven't gone back and done an exhaustive analysis of the polling data, but I do think that I have noticed a trend developing in the polling numbers. It seems to me that, especially in the tracking polls, that Obama's numbers go way down on the Friday-Sunday samples. why? I think its that a lot of Democratic voters, especially the young voters that are going so heavily for Obama in this race, are not at home on those evenings and, quite frankly, have better things to do on weekends than answer calls from pollsters. So, while if someone shows me data to counter this assumption I would have happy to re-evaluate my opinion, I think the fact that Obama maintained at 8 point lead on a day where the McCain/Palin dominated the coverage and where we tend to poll poorly anyway, that is a very good sign.
McCain is going to get a bounce out of his convention, though I doubt it will be a bounce like Sen. Obama got, and Gustav could also throw a monkey wrench into his bounce. If the Obama we saw at the convention is the Obama we get from here on out, we're going to be in great shape if we have any sort of lead at the end of next week.
EDIT: Edited to reflect that 38 million people watched the speech, not 33. Thanks, Trix.