McCain Convention Bounce Continues

As expected, we are looking at small number changes in the tracking polls in McCain's favor, subject to equilibration in a week or so. The MoE is +/- 2.

Rasmussen: Numbers are  Sun (Sat) (Fri) (Thurs) (Wed). Compare last week, the Sunday after the Dem convention.

Rep Convention
Obama   48 (49) (48) (50) (50)
McCain  48 (46) (46) (45) (45)

Dem Convention
Obama   49 (49) (49) (47) (46)
McCain  46 (45) (45) (47) (47)

The maximum Obama Rasmussen bounce wasn't seen until Tuesday. The "official" bounce day is the Monday poll after the conventions. Last Wed, Scott Rasmussen wrote:

This past Tuesday, Obama’s bounce peaked with the Democrat enjoying a six-percentage point advantage. Before the two conventions were held, Obama had consistently held a one or two point lead over McCain for most of August (see recent daily results).

Looking at max. lead is different than what Gallup does (see below). In any case, the Rasmussen McCain bounce started a few days into the convention later than the Obama bounce.   Some people think that McCain does better in Fri-Sat polling, so it will be interesting to see what this looks like Tuesday. As Obama days fall off and McCain days are rotated in, the McCain numbers are expected to rise. We, of course, don't know where it winds up, but we will measure the bounce tomorrow (and argue about how).

Gallup: Last Sunday, Obama had a 6 point lead, which would max to 8 on Wednesday. This Sunday, McCain takes the lead 48-45. McCain won Fri and Sat (sez Gallup), so there's one more Obama day to rotate off tomorrow, to be replaced by whatever Sunday polling brings.

Gallup does not look at max. lead to define the bounce. The way Gallup measures bounce is on the Monday after the convention compare the candidate's numbers to the Monday prior. Obama went from 45 to 49 (a 4 point bounce) and McCain started at 43.

Rep Convention
Obama   45 (47) (48) (49) (49)
McCain  48 (45) (44) (42) (43)

Dem Convention
Obama  48 (49) (49) (48) (45)
McCain 42 (41) (41) (42) (44)

Diageo-Hotline tracking poll does not publish on weekends. Like Gallup, it is a registered voter poll, whereas Rasmussen is a likely voter poll.

The markets, such as Rasmussen and Intrade have Obama ahead, roughly 57.5 to 42, a pick-up of ~2.5 points for McCain and a similar magnitude to Obama's convention market bounce last week (59.5 to 61.5). The markets react faster than the tracking polls.

It will take another week to see what's sustained and what is not.

For more on the individual polls and expected "house effect" (the observation that, for example, Rasmussen leans GOP a point or two), see Charles Franklin at pollster. com. I have highlighted the trackers in yellow; Diageo-Hotline's is for the poll they do for National Journal (no tracking poll data available.)

What the topline numbers do not tell us are such things as whether people still think McCain is likely to pursue Bush policies (they have up until now), and whether the numbers reflect something seen before: a regional difference in that McCain runs strong in the South but Obama does well elsewhere. That latter is another way of saying that state to state and regional variations are not picked up by topline polls.

Note also these are very small leads either way. It's been many a year since we've seen 12 and 14 point leads, and this is now almost past convention season. A relatively tight topline race is expected at least until the debates if this follows the pattern of recent elections, where there are relatively few undecideds left. Who the undecideds are (older, female., etc) is important.

Regardless, we have a close race and an increasingly polarized electorate. The problem for Republicans is that their base is smaller than other years. But based on the numbers, neither has knocked the other out. Also, each convention did something for their candidate, whereas previous years was not so even-handed (the GOP was credited with winning the convention battle.) And this year there are four extraordinary stories, so media interest will be at a peak.

Ground game becomes vital in this kind of election, and so does news that neither campaign can control. Right now, the news is economic.

Bottom line on the toplines... wait until Tues or Wed.