As previously mentioned, Willard has had a terrible month. I expect Willard's numbers to rise after the Republican National Convention. He will get a bump before that when he picks his running mate. If he is not leading President Obama then, he never will.
The most likely scenario, in my opinion, is that Willard will take a small national lead after their convention. Willard will lead or be tied in most swing states. This will probably last until our convention. Whatever the numbers are two weeks after our convention, they are likely to remain. The debates will not help Willard. In theory, they ought to since they elevate him by putting him on the same stage as the President. However, due to the fact that President Obama is a much better candidate and has a much more compelling message, President Obama will not lose any ground.
So, with that caveat in mind, let's look at why things look so bleak for him.
Kos notes We are Winning
Mitt Romney is a disaster. He's the first Republican nominee in modern history to havehigher negatives than positives (not even Bob Dole had that distinction). His every interaction with regular Americans (and heads of state, for that matter) has ended in an insult. He was a bully when he was younger, and he's a bully now. Except that instead of shearing off people's wrong-sized hair, he fires them. He speaks weirdIt isn't just Obama's margin of victory in states adding up to 332 electoral votes (when he only needs 270 to win). It's Romney's numbers. Look at them closely. There are a lot of 42s and 43s and 44s. In fact, he only hits 46 percent in three of the 13 states. This, of course, speaks to the fact that no one likes Romney. And while the Romney campaign claims it'll be like Ronald Reagan—coming from behind late in the cycle to win, fact is, people liked Reagan. They liked him a lot..
CNNhas President Obama
ahead of rmoney by 7 .
For God's sake, even Fox has President Obama up 9 on rmoney
Pew has President Obama up by double figures
Here is one major problem for willard :
As has been the case all year, women favor Obama by a wide margin; currently 56% of women support Obama, while 37% back Romney. Men are more evenly divided (46% Obama, 47% Romney)
Now, let's look at some historical comparisons :
August 28, 2004
Kerry Slips Slightly as GOP Heads for NYC
Poll Finds Kerry's Lead Softening
By MARK SCHULMAN
Saturday, Aug. 28, 2004
A new TIME poll finds President Bush heading into next week's Republican National Convention amid signs that his opponent's advantage is softening. Two weeks of John Kerry playing defense over his Vietnam record and relentless Republican attacks on what they characterize as his "flip-flopping" on Iraq appear to have taken a toll: President Bush now appears to be in a statistical dead-heat with Kerry in a three-way race among likely voters, with 46% backing Bush, 44% backing Kerry and 5% opting for Ralph Nader and 3% undecided. Immediately after the Democratic convention, Bush had trailed Kerry among likely voters by 48% - 43%, with Nader at 4%. Even if Nader were to drop out, a two-way race also finds Bush and Kerry neck-and-neck at 46% each.
One key indicator of Kerry's fortunes, his favorability rating, has dropped from 53% favorable - 29% unfavorable in early August to 44% favorable - 33% unfavorable today.
For a more extensive comparison, we can look
here :
ABC News/WP (775 LV) 8/26 - 8/29 49% 49% TIE
Time (835 LV) 8/24 - 8/26 46% 46% TIE
FOX News (1,000 LV) 8/24 - 8/25 44% 45%Kerry +1
CNN/USAT/Gallup (709 LV) 8/23 - 8/25 50% 47% Bush +3
Rasmussen (1,500 LV) 8/23 - 8/25 47% 46% Bush +1
NPR - POS/GQR (800 LV) 8/21 - 8/24 45% 50% Kerry +5
LA Times (1,352 RV) 8/21 - 8/24 49% 46% Bush +3
IBD/TIPP (884 RV) 8/17 - 8/23 44% 44% TIE
CBS News (835 RV) 8/15 - 8/18 44% 47% Kerry +3
Battleground Poll (1,000 LV) 8/15 - 8/17 47% 49% Kerry +2
Zogby (1,011 LV) 8/12 - 8/14 43% 50% Kerry +7
Gallup (729 LV) 8/9 - 8/11 50% 47% Bush +3
Dem Corps* (1,013 LV)8/2 - 8/545%52%Kerry +7
IBD/TIPP (841 RV)8/2 - 8/5 43% 49% Kerry +6
Fox News (775 LV)8/3 - 8/4 43% 48% Kerry +5
Above are all the polls for Bush / Kerry in August 2004.
Kerry is up a net of 27 points over these 15 polls.
In only 4 of the polls, is George W Bush up.
In 3 of the polls, we have a tie.
In the remaining 8, John Kerry is up.
This is prior to the Republican Convention that year.
Prior to the conventions, the challenger is new, shiny, an alternative "Jesus" to the incumbent. The attention of the press is upon the challenger. Opinions of voters upon the challenger are often unstable. After the Olympics, the vice presidential running mate is announced and attention to the presidential race is greatly heightened. With the greater focus and attention, the challenger and his record are scrutinized with more care. Thus, the challenger's negatives are likely to rise at this time.
Now, let us consider the polls closer to election day in 2004.
After August 24, 2004 on, only 6 polls showed Kerry ahead.
49 of the polls after August 24, 2004 had Bush ahead.
After August 24, 2004, five of the polls showed a tie between Bush and Kerry.
So, what happened ?
The challenger rose until the end of August for the reasons noted above and fell afterwards for the reasons given above. The challenger will tend to perform at his or her best until the end of August. The incumbent will then make a comeback.
Up through the Republican convention, then, is the best polling that Willard will ever have.
Let us put this in more specific relief :
Romney faces a more daunting challenge, as more voters say they have an unfavorable (52%) than favorable (37%) opinion of him. The only prior presidential candidates to be viewed negatively going into the election were George H.W. Bush in October 1992 and Bob Dole in October 1996.
.
Whether these candidates can improve their personal images between now and Election Day remains an open question. In 2008, Barack Obama’s favorability ratings rose from summer
to fall. In 1992, Bill Clinton came out of the Democratic primaries with relatively poor favorability ratings, which improved in the run-up to the Democratic Convention in July. Clinton’s ratings slipped in October, but remained in positive territory.
Kos - How it is mostly rmoney's primary supporters that strongly favor him in the general
Mitt Romney's unfavorable rating is up, most Americans think the Republican presidential challenger favors the rich, and the public no longer believes that the economy will get better if Romney is elected, according to a new national poll.And they won't get better because the unlikeable Romney is even less liked—from 47-42 last month favorable-unfavorable, to 47-48 this month. This pollster was one of the few that showed Romney above water in his favorables, but no more. Among independents, his unfavorable rating is 52 percent.
Other findings: Sixty-four percent of all Americans, and 68% of independents, think Romney favors the rich over the middle class.
Nate Silver has data on this topic.
He points out that early on, the favorability rating of the challenger may not matter. He considers the case of Bill Clinton who had a negative favorability early on, after winning the Democratic nomination. However, Bill Clinton was not well known.
And Nate says that it is very different to have a well known challenger who has negative favorability past August :
If, for instance, we still see this favorability deficit in July — and certainly if we see it in September or October — the odds are fairly good that Mr. Obama will perform more strongly than the economic fundamentals alone would dictate and could winMy guess, for what it’s worth, is that we will see some improvement in Mr. Romney’s favorability numbers over the next month or two.
If we look at favorability ratings in the late stages of a presidential race, however — as measured by an average of New York Times/CBS News polls conducted from September of the election year until the election date — we find a much stronger relationship. Although there is not data on this for 1976, the candidate with the stronger net-favorable rating in the late stages has won every election since 1980, and there has been an almost-perfect correspondence between the margin of the favorability gap and his margin of victory or defeat in the popular vote.
No challenger with a negative favorability rating at this stage in August has beaten an incumbent. If Willard continues to have a negative favorability rating after the Republican National Convention and is losing or tied in most of the swing states, he will not win.
8:47 PM PT: every day, I working on get Democratic voters registered.
8:49 PM PT: I highly recommend the great diary by nomandates - our Obama Nightly News Edition tonight - fighting for equality and combating the Republican attacks on women http://www.dailykos.com/...