What do we know about the impact of the now-underway GOP convention on the mood of the electorate and the political fortunes of one Willard Mitt Romney?
Answer: Not a whole hell of a lot.
Several polls were released. One moved markedly in the GOP's direction, signaling the potential for a legitimate "bounce" from the convention. Another moved incrementally in favor of the president, signaling the potential for a 1992-esque "negative bounce."
Others? The needle has barely moved, which, all in all, seems about right to me, given the abortive start of the convention and the fact that the bulk of the polling, even now, is from samples weighted heavily to before the gathering even convened.
That said, on to the numbers:
PRESIDENTIAL GENERAL ELECTION TRIAL HEATS:
NATIONAL (Democracy Corps--D): Obama d. Romney (49-47)
NATIONAL (Gallup Tracking): Obama d. Romney (47-46)
NATIONAL (Ipsos-Reuters): Obama tied with Romney (43-43)
NATIONAL (Rasmussen Tracking): Obama d. Romney (46-45)
NATIONAL (YouGov): Romney d. Obama (47-46)
CONNECTICUT (PPP for League of Conservation Voters): Obama d. Romney (53-40)
ILLINOIS (Ipsos for Crain Business): Obama d. Romney (55-29)
NEVADA (PPP): Obama d. Romney (50-47)
NEW JERSEY (Rutgers/Eagleton): Obama d. Romney (51-37)
DOWNBALLOT POLLING:
CA-07 (Garin-Hart-Yang for House Majority PAC, et al): Ami Bera (D) 47, Rep. Dan Lungren (R) 47
CT-SEN (PPP for League of Conservation Voters): Chris Murphy (D) 48, Linda McMahon (R) 44
MO-SEN (Wenzel Strategies for the Family Research Council--R): Todd Akin (R) 45, Sen. Claire McCaskill (D) 42
NY-11 (Global Strategy Group for the Murphy campaign): Rep. Michael Grimm (R) 48, Mark Murphy (D) 36
A few thoughts, as always, await you just past the jump ...
Republicans eager to talk about bounces will be well served by a pair of internet-based polls that came out today. The convention-week tracking poll by Ipsos (for Reuters) shows four points of movement in Mitt Romney's direction over the past two days. Their Monday release was Obama +4 (that was in yesterday's Wrap). In the interim, they released one on Tuesday with Obama +2. Today? Tied at 43.
More incrementally, the all-net YouGov poll also creeped in the direction of Mitt Romney, to the tune of a single percent (actually "drifted" or "floated" might be more apt adjectives). And the House of Ras has moved two points in the direction of the Republican ticket since Monday, as well.
To the contrary, Gallup actually moved in the Democratic direction overnight, from Romney +1 on Tuesday to Obama +1 on Wednesday. However, the two-point shift, especially in light of a seven-day tracking sample, doesn't amount to a whole hell of a lot.
That, friends, is to be expected. Trying to divine trends with such little movement (and in such little data) is like our friends in the comments section strutting or cowering when an election result is posted with 2 of 493 precincts reporting. To be blunt, it's way too early for that shit.
The Democratic convention will already be underway in Charlotte before we will have a true picture of the impact of the GOP convention on the state of play, both in terms of Romney versus Obama and downballot, as well.
In other polling news ...
- Speaking of convention bounces, yesterday we looked at the issue of the convention bounce in the Wrap. Today, Pollster's Mark Blumenthal lays out an excellent case for why conventions, and convention bounces, matter. It is very much worth reading in full.
- Downballot, PPP (polling for the League of Conservation Voters) offered a bit of contradictory evidence today in the Nutmeg State. But not totally contradictory evidence. While they had Democrat Chris Murphy still ahead of Linda McMahon in the open Senate race, it was still a very close race (which is what both the Q and Rasmussen polls in the state showed over the past week). Those two polls were McMahon +3, while PPP was Murphy +4. This poll had presidential numbers, incidentally, which were a little more amenable to the Democrats, though still less than the margin Barack Obama enjoyed in 2008.
- Is Todd Akin riding back into the lead in Missouri? Meh. Democrats would love Akin to continue to have unyielding faith in his own electability, but the pollster (Wenzel Strategies, which fired off the dud of the year in 2010 by saying Norm Dicks was endangered in WA-06) and the sponsor (the Family Research Council) make me somewhat dubious. Of all the polls to come out of the Show-Me State over the past week or so, I think that Mason-Dixon poll from Friday is closest to the pin: McCaskill and Romney both ahead, with McCaskill's lead being a little safer than Romney's.