GOP Convention Bounce Showing Up Early

On the day after the Republican Party convention in St. Paul, Minnesota, there are indications that the traditional post-convention bounce usually seen in opinion polling is materializing early for the GOP. The Real Clear Politics polling average has narrowed to show Sen. Barack Obama with a 2.5 point lead over Sen. John McCain. That is down four points in the last three days. The reason for the tightening can be found in two of the components of the average, the Gallup and Rasmussen Reports daily tracking polls.

Gallup shows the race as a 48-44% Obama lead, down from a nine-point Obama advantage on Aug. 29th, the day after his acceptance speech. That was Sen. Obama's biggest lead since Aug. 15th and came on the same day that Sen. McCain announced Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as his running mate. On Thursday, Rasmussen showed the race as a two point Obama lead, 48-46%. Both polls have very large sample sizes, 2800 and 3000 respectively, and measure public opinion over three days, averaging the result. Gallup measures registered voters while Rasmussen measures likely voters.

The news for the McCain campaign is likely to get better. Both results only include one day in in which voters would have seen Gov. Palin's vice-presidential acceptance speech. With the enthusiastic response to her address, and the fact that Palin is now more popular than either presidential candidate, according to a recent Rasmussen poll, the daily tracking numbers should close even further as the weekend progresses. By Monday, all three days in the rolling average of each poll will include post-Palin speech sampling. That result is likely to show an even race or perhaps a small McCain lead.

The pattern of this election appears to be set. This will be a very close election, just like the elections of 2000 and 2004. Democrats still appear to have the built-in advantages. But the selection of Gov. Palin by Sen. McCain has energized the Republican base like never before in this contest. Conservatives for the first time have a reason to vote for the McCain ticket, rather than against the Democrats. The first Presidential debate takes place on Friday, Sept. 26th. Unless one of the candidates has a major misstep before then, the race is likely to remain even or close until then.