The Incredible Vanishing GOP Convention Bounce

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.

Gallup is out with a post-convention poll asking people whether last week’s festivities in Tampa have made them more likely or less likely to vote for Mitt Romney. Answer: 40% are more likely, 38% are less likely. This is a net bounce of 2 percentage points, the lowest since Gallup started tracking this question a quarter of a century ago.

The chart on the right shows the net bounce for most conventions going back to 1984. What I found most interesting is that aside from two outliers with gigantic bounces, every convention has produced a bounce of about 15 percentage points. Every convention, that is, until you get to Republican conventions in the Bush era and beyond. Ever since W stamped his imprint on the GOP, their convention bounces have been nearly invisible. Apparently, putting themselves on display to the American public simply doesn’t make a positive impression anymore.

Those of us who are liberal hacks will have an obvious reaction: No kidding. Is it any wonder that the American public doesn’t get the warm and fuzzies from watching the parade of rabid true believers that make up today’s GOP? Still, it’s kind of curious, isn’t it?

In other news, Gallup reports that Romney’s acceptance speech was the most poorly received of any speech since they started keeping track in 1996. In fact, it wasn’t even close. The net positive rating for Romney was nine points lower than the previous worst speaker (John McCain) and a full 13 points lower than the pre-Romney average. Ouch.

Fact:

Mother Jones was founded as a nonprofit in 1976 because we knew corporations and billionaires wouldn't fund the type of hard-hitting journalism we set out to do.

Today, reader support makes up about two-thirds of our budget, allows us to dig deep on stories that matter, and lets us keep our reporting free for everyone. If you value what you get from Mother Jones, please join us with a tax-deductible donation today so we can keep on doing the type of journalism 2022 demands.

payment methods

Fact:

Today, reader support makes up about two-thirds of our budget, allows us to dig deep on stories that matter, and lets us keep our reporting free for everyone. If you value what you get from Mother Jones, please join us with a tax-deductible donation today so we can keep on doing the type of journalism 2022 demands.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate