Many have wondered what share of Clinton’s big current lead (RCP 2-way avg: +7.5%, HuffPost Pollster 2-way avg: +8.6%) can be attributed to the effects of the convention bounce and what share is actually a sign of something more fundamental caused by the moronic statements and purely self-inflicted damage by Trump. FiveThirtyEight has a model that shows what a typical convention bounce could look like:
As we can see, we would still need to wait about 1-1,5 weeks before really knowing where the race settles. Of course, this has been far from your typical convention season with Trump’s “worst week in a presidential campaign ever” happening right after the Democratic convention. But while most suspect that Trump’s comments have made a real lasting impact on the race, is there any sign of that? Can we disentangle that from the effects of a convention bounce? It is after all possible that Trump’s latest comments could be like his comments about judge Curiel back in June — not forgotten but also not game changing in terms of Trump’s support’s floor or ceiling.
This is definitely not a robust scientific analysis on the issue, but I think the below charts are actually surprisingly revealing.
I have highlighted “the bounce” starting from the Democratic convention with the red box. As we can see, the lead hasn’t increased in the last few days and has more or less flat-lined but it hasn’t started to decline yet. If you look at Nate’s chart about convention bounces above, this is actually in line with that as we are currently in a period where “the net impact” would stay the same before declining within the next 1-1,5 weeks. However, the below chart seems to suggest that something else might be going on too:
Here it is obvious that Clinton had an actual bounce that came and went. Unfortunately for our side, it looks like “the baggage” from the last 25 years has more or less hardened voters’ views on Clinton in both good and bad. One very strong week that tried to highlight her positives didn’t seem to be enough to change people’s views about her in the long run. Her image is more or less locked in.
But what is the main point here? It is that you can clearly identify your typical bounce in her favorability numbers but not in the horse race numbers. I think it’s a fairly strong assumption that these two charts would move more or less in unison if it was just your typical convention bounce. While things can obviously change, the current data seems to suggest that Clinton’s current lead cannot be attributed primarily or even largely to a temporary convention bounce. Her lead against Trump is still at around +8% nationally even after the convention bounce dissipated from her favorability numbers and are back at the levels where they’ve been through most of the year.
While we can’t say this is definite proof that this type of lead by Hillary is here to stay, this is definitely encouraging as it seems to indicate that some people are finally ditching Trump for good and his win in November looks less and less likely.