Perhaps we owe it to the "inter-convention" lull. Perhaps we owe it to the three-day holiday weekend.
Whatever the reason, if it weren't for a very quirky deluge of downballot polls in Florida, this would have been the quietest polling day in recent history. We did get another sign, however small, that the Republican National Convention failed to yield a bump for the Romney/Ryan team.
On to the numbers:
PRESIDENTIAL GENERAL ELECTION TRIAL HEATS:
NATIONAL (Gallup Tracking): Obama d. Romney (47-46)
NATIONAL (Rasmussen Tracking): Romney d. Obama (48-45)
NATIONAL (YouGov): Obama d. Romney (47-46)
OHIO (Gravis--R): Romney d. Obama (47-44)
DOWNBALLOT POLLING:
CA-47 (Goodwin Simon for the Lowenthal campaign): Alan Lowenthal (D) 51, Gary DeLong (R) 31
FL-03 (St. Petersburg Polls and Surveys): Ted Yoho (R) 56, J.R. Gaillot (D) 31
FL-09 (St. Petersburg Polls and Surveys): Alan Grayson (D) 46, Todd Long (R) 41
FL-12 (St. Petersburg Polls and Surveys): Rep. Gus Bilirakis (R) 57, Jonathan Snow (D) 27, Others 4
FL-13 (St. Petersburg Polls and Surveys): Rep. Bill Young (R) 50, Jessica Ehrlich (D) 39
FL-14 (St. Petersburg Polls and Surveys): Rep. Kathy Castor (D) 59, E.J Otero (R) 32
FL-16 (St. Petersburg Polls and Surveys): Rep. Vern Buchanan (R) 56, Keith Fitzgerald (D) 37
FL-18 (St. Petersburg Polls and Surveys): Rep. Allen West (R) 49, Patrick Murphy (D) 43
FL-22 (St. Petersburg Polls and Surveys): Lois Frankel (D) 47, Adam Hasner (R) 41
IL-11 (Global Strategy Group for the Foster campaign): Rep. Judy Biggert (R) 43, Bill Foster (D) 42
NJ-GOV (2013): Gov. Chris Christie (R) 47, Cory Booker (D) 40
NY-18 (Tarrance Group for the Hayworth campaign): Rep. Nan Hayworth (R) 51, Sean Maloney (D) 42
OH-SEN (Gravis--R): Sen. Sherrod Brown (D) 44, Josh Mandel (R) 44
A few thoughts, as always, await you just past the jump...
Yesterday, I examined a total of six polls (four different pollsters, with two of them having both RV and LV samples) that were precisely a week apart. Those polls gave Mitt Romney an average bounce of 2.2 percent. We can now add the Internet-only YouGov poll to the mix. YouGov, like Gallup, found a very slight negative bounce for the GOP ticket in the wake of their convention. In fact, their numbers echoed the Gallup numbers precisely, with a 47-46 Romney lead reversed in favor of the president.
So, adding YouGov to the average, we now have seven pre-RNC and post-RNC polls, and the negative bounce from YouGov drops that "bounce" down to 1.6 percent, less than half of the most modest estimates of the expected Republican bounce.
Now, we reach what is, in essence, the starting point by which we can measure the Democratic counter-bounce. Last night's daily tracking polls (Ipsos-Reuters seems to have disappeared) shows virtually no movement. Someone apparently broke Gallup and forgot to inform everyone, because that tracking poll hasn't moved a point in a week. Meanwhile, Rasmussen did move, but (surprise!) they moved in Mitt Romney's direction. But, remember, the sample was culled almost exclusively before the prime-time coverage of the DNC last night, First Lady Michelle Obama's speech, in particular.
Color me pessimistic, but a huge bounce still seems like a pretty elusive goal. There just don't seem to be a ton of undecided voters, and so a built-in level of opposition seems baked in at this point. To that end, political scientist Thomas Holbrook forecasted only a 1.1 point bounce, on average, for the president. Now, Holbrook was pretty pessimistic: he only projected a 3.6 point bounce for Romney (which he came nowhere close to hitting, by the way).
1.1 percent might be pessimistic, but if Obama ends the convention with just a 3-5 point bounce, that'd have to be considered a success, because it means that Obama will end the convention season with a 5-7 point lead. Me thinks the crew in Chicago would take that, happily.
In other polling news...
- I freely admit: I have no frackin' clue who "St Petersburg Poll and Surveys" is. I know they are affiliated with a firm called Fextel, Inc. It appears to be a business communications/marketing firm, which makes me wonder why the hell they'd care about political polling. But, as I have said before, polling "firms" that are really subsidiaries of larger marketing or communications companies always arouse my spidey sense (see: Gravis). As for the numbers, if I had to characterize them, I would characterize them as pretty consistently favorable to the GOP. I would gladly take each of the Democrats if these polls were used to lay down a point spread, especially in FL-16, where I don't buy Vern Buchanan up nearly 20, given his recent problems.
- Speaking of Gravis, they are back with a poll in Ohio, and it smells way too optimistic for the GOP (as have most of their polls). They actually had Josh Mandel ahead by a few tenths over incumbent Democrat Sherrod Brown. The good news? We won't have to wait long for numbers here from a more legitimate outfit: PPP heads there next week.
- A trio House internal polls also got released today, with two Democratic polls being matched with a lone GOP poll. The one that generated the biggest debate among the Daily Kos Elections crew was the one out of Illinois, where former Rep. Bill Foster released his own polling showing him down just 43-42 to Rep. Judy Biggert. On one hand, this was drawn up as a fairly blue district (one that went 61-37 Obama), making a GOP lead of any size a mild disappointment. On the other hand, Biggert repped about half of this district before the remapping, whereas Foster's tenure in office was in territory that comprises only about half of the newly-drawn 11th district. The other two districts show Democrat Alan Lowenthal easily holding serve in a bluish new district in California, and Republican freshman Rep. Nan Hayworth staked to a more modest lead of nine points in her upstate New York district. Expect exponentially more House internals now that we are within two months of the big day.