Yesterday, the internets and the Twitter were full of right-wingers and right-leaning pundits were predicting (or, perhaps more accurately, praying) that the middling August jobs report would stall the momentum of President Obama, and put this race back at the coin flip that they presumed it to be prior to the conventions.
None of the pollsters in today's set of data released one day samples, but it seems fairly clear that their best hopes for a blunted bounce have not materialized as of yet.
On to the numbers:
NATIONAL (Gallup Tracking): Obama d. Romney (49-45)
NATIONAL (Ipsos/Reuters Tracking): Obama d. Romney (47-43)
NATIONAL (Rasmussen Tracking): Obama d. Romney (46-44)
A few thoughts, as always, await you just past the jump...
So, let's use this rather slim data set to examine two questions:
1. How does the Obama bounce compare to the Romney bounce?
As I pointed out on Wednesday, seven different data points from before and after the RNC, when averaged together, gave Mitt Romney a "bounce" of just under two percent.
Pre-and-post RNC polling, listed by pollster (net bounce in bold):
YouGov: From Romney +1 to Obama +1 (Obama +2)
Gallup: From Romney +1 to Obama +1 (Obama +2)
CNN/ORC (LV): From Obama +2 to Tied (Romney +2)
CNN/ORC (RV): From Obama +9 to Obama +7 (Romney +2)
Rasmussen: From Obama +2 to Romney +3 (Romney +5)
Ipsos/Reuters (LV): From Obama +2 to Romney +2 (Romney +4)
Ipsos/Reuters (RV): From Obama +4 to Tied (Romney +4)
NET BOUNCE (7 surveys): Romney +1.9 percent
We only have four data points here, because CNN will likely release their numbers early next week, and YouGov's weekly tracking poll gets released on Wednesdays. But the other four tracking polls are still being conducted. Let's see how those bounces look, with the reference point being the polls released on Wednesday.
Gallup: From Obama +1 to Obama +4 (Obama +3)
Rasmussen: Romney +3 to Obama +2 (Obama +5)
Ipsos/Reuters LV: Romney +2 to Obama +4 (Obama +6)
++Ipsos/Reuters RV: Tied to Obama +3 (Obama +3)
NET BOUNCE (4 surveys): Obama +4.3 percent
(++)--RV data for Saturday's tracking poll not available as of yet.
For perspective, a week ago, Romney's net bounce stood at 1.3 percent.
What this may well mean, is that the president may not gain much more of a bounce that he already has. After all, the precedent set by team Romney was that most of the gain was realized by the weekend. However, he also did not get much of a bounce to begin with, so Romney might not be the best guide here. But that actually does bring us to question number two.
2. Did the jobs report stall the bounce? If not, will it soon?
To the first question, the answer appears to be: no. In Friday's poll releases, which came before the BLS report, Obama gained an average of 2.3 points over the previous day's release (three points in Ipsos/Reuters, and two each in Gallup and Ras). In today's releases? Obama gained an average of two points.
What's more, Nate Silver has been crunching numbers, and he thinks the current lead for Obama is even higher than the trackers are letting on:
It looks to me like Obama has been running ~7-9 points ahead of Romney since the Clinton speech to have gained ground so quickly.
— @fivethirtyeight via TweetDeck
And, exhibit C, from PPP, which went into the field on Friday night:
Things definitely looking good for Obama in the polls we started tonight...we'll see if it holds through the weekend as the DNC fades away
— @ppppolls via web
Add these three things together, and it doesn't read like a situation where Obama had a great Thursday night and then the bottom fell out on Friday night. One would assume that this bounce, like all convention bounces, will recede to some extent over time. But, right now, two things seem evident: Barack Obama got a convention bounce, and it was far superior to that of Mitt Romney.
How much better his bounce will be is a question that will be answered by the middle of next week.