Aug 17th, 2008 at 9:24 pm
Convention Bumps
The idea of a “convention bump” is the kind of thing I’m instinctively suspicious of, but apparently the best political science out there indicates that it’s a real phenomenon. Via John Sides, Tom Holbrook has a discussion of the issue. I reproduced his key chart above.
34 Responses to “Convention Bumps”
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August 17th, 2008 at 9:34 pm
A caveat for this year – there has never been the 2nd party’s convention one week after the 1st ones. There has usually been a break of several weeks. This could easily have an impact on Obama’s bump (as well as the fact that the weekend following it is a holiday, normally a bad time to poll).
August 17th, 2008 at 9:37 pm
Funny that the phenomenon is so strong the Democrats got a bump EVEN IN 1968 !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
August 17th, 2008 at 9:42 pm
Hopefully Obama will be able to trade off his charisma in the same way it looks like Bill Clinton was able to trade off his own during the 1992 convention.
August 17th, 2008 at 9:47 pm
fivethirtyeight had some pretty good analysis of this the other day.
August 17th, 2008 at 9:56 pm
Ah, this brings back the happy memories of summer 2000 and 2004. Somehow, the fact that Al Gore had a GREAT convention and the fact that his great convention was written out of the story of the 2000 election have the same explanation: he unrolled his populist, take-on-the-powerful message at the 2000 convention.
Then skip forward to 2004, a convention which was widely praised at the time but started to sour in light of the swift boating the following month. This chart indicates things were never as good as they seemed. Also, it’s amazing that the Zell Miller convention was a success–I thought it would cost Bush heavily. Shows what I know.
August 17th, 2008 at 9:58 pm
“A caveat for this year – there has never been the 2nd party’s convention one week after the 1st ones.”
Well, no.
It hasn’t been that way the past few cycles, but it’s been done that way several times in the past. There was only a two day gap between the conventions in 1956, for example.
—–
“The idea of a “convention bump” is the kind of thing I’m instinctively suspicious of”
Matthew thinks that way because he is mistakenly of the opinion that the actual practice of electoral politics has no impact on elections.
August 17th, 2008 at 10:08 pm
“Also, it’s amazing that the Zell Miller convention was a success–I thought it would cost Bush heavily. Shows what I know.”
I also thought the Republican ‘04 Wednesday session was over the top, but they saved it with a emotional and focussed Thursday. Bush’s speech at the ‘04 convention was the greatest performance of his career by a wide margin.
In a way, they took the furor and anger of the Wednesday session and channeled it into purpose on Thursday. It was a high-wire strategy, but in a way, the whole Bush ‘04 campaign was conducted with a high-wire strategy.
August 17th, 2008 at 10:08 pm
Petey – thanks for the correction – I knew there has always been a break since 1960.
Were both conventions held in Chicago in 1956? Must have been – no way the networks could have moved their TV equipment that quickly (things were far more cumbersome back in the day…)
August 17th, 2008 at 10:25 pm
Re: , it’s amazing that the Zell Miller convention was a success–I thought it would cost Bush heavily.
Per the chart he got less of a bump from the convention in 2004 than his father did from the 1992 conevntion, which was widely considered a fiasco due to its over-the-top Culture War rhetoric. So really, the 04 covenntio ndidn;t do Bush that much good.
August 17th, 2008 at 10:39 pm
I’ve been seeing repeated references to Dukakis having a 17 point lead in July, and that’s why we should worry greatly that Obama only leads by about 5. If I remember correctly, Dukakis had a very large convention bump in early July, but the republican convention at the end of the summer pretty much negated it.
One reason I think Obama will get a big bump, bigger than McCain’s, is that the convention will refresh people’s memory about Obama. He was very impressive throughout the primaries, but we’ve seen only sound bites since then. The convention will remind/reintroduce/introduce him. His cool personality doesn’t come across in short sound bites, but does much better in longer segments.
McCain won’t do as well for 2 reasons. First, he is already very well known. Second, he doesn’t come across dynamically in any setting.
my 2 cents.
August 17th, 2008 at 10:42 pm
Writing to make much the same point as Petey — is MY actually saying that he believes an uninterrupted four-day bath of carefully choreographed, upbeat, resonant political ideology designed to be as maximally palatable as possible is unlikely to have an effect on voters? What on earth does he think would have an effect?
In a way, this prejudice might be a result of the specific ups and downs of the 2008 campaign — none of the things that were supposed to have a big impact ended up having a big impact. 2004 was a little bit similar. I think somehow we’ve gotten used to the idea that it takes a lot to move voters, but it’s an illusion.
August 17th, 2008 at 11:30 pm
I think the concept of a “war bounce” is going to be more important this year than the “convention bounce”.
Conventions don’t last – wars do. And wars are considerably more important than conventions.
If Bush starts an Iran war, McCain is going to get the same sort of points from the MSM he got last week from the Georgia war – and Obama won’t.
The Georgia war is very valuable for highlighting exactly what I’ve been saying – that McCain is going to get support from the MSM for his “war hero credentials” and Obama won’t. This was a “test run” for an Iran war.
Pay attention.
August 17th, 2008 at 11:34 pm
Interesting moment in the CW. Nate Silver has finally figured out that a Clinton Veep pick would create an enormous convention bump for Obama.
August 18th, 2008 at 12:00 am
Bush’s speech at the ‘04 convention was the greatest performance of his career by a wide margin.
I dunno, the speech to the Joint Session of Congress on September 20, 2001 was a pretty great performance.
Also, O/T, but when are we going to get the official MY Obama Veep prediction?
August 18th, 2008 at 12:17 am
“I dunno, the speech to the Joint Session of Congress on September 20, 2001 was a pretty great performance.”
I actually thought that performance was merely adequate – the normal Bush podium delivery. That speech was so well received more due to the zeitgeist than the performance. Everyone was so eager for Bush to do well that his performance was evaluated on a curve.
The ‘04 convention speech was on a different level of performance than any other speech Bush ever delivered. It was incredibly soft and buttery, and Bush teared up at the end in just the right way. He got a level of empathetic connection far beyond what he was normally able to reach from the podium.
August 18th, 2008 at 1:21 am
Martin Says:
August 17th, 2008 at 10:42 pm
Writing to make much the same point as Petey — is MY actually saying that he believes an uninterrupted four-day bath of carefully choreographed, upbeat, resonant political ideology designed to be as maximally palatable as possible is unlikely to have an effect on voters? What on earth does he think would have an effect?
I second that, except for the part about agreeing with Petey. I agree with Martin. If Martin agrees with Petey, that’s his affair. I hold that the inherent variation of human meaning and the vagaries of English negate any perceived transitive property that might appear to force me to agree with Petey by agreeing with Martin.
August 18th, 2008 at 2:17 am
Bush teared up at the end in just the right way.
Funny, all I remember about that speech was that he delivered it from the end of a giant penis. Of course, maybe that’s what you mean.
August 18th, 2008 at 2:24 am
I agree with aleks.
August 18th, 2008 at 2:48 am
And Petey shows his true colours. Soft and buttery, indeed.
(Let’s not forget that the end of the Dem convention in 2004 was followed immediately by one of Tom Ridge’s magic orange terrahlerts.)
August 18th, 2008 at 3:10 am
“Let’s not forget that the end of the Dem convention in 2004 was followed immediately by one of Tom Ridge’s magic orange terrahlerts.”
There was a lot more than just that. They staged the unveiling of the capture of a “high value target” in Pakistan for the Friday the day after Kerry’s speech to absorb attention. And they had a terror alert in NYC the day before the Dem convention started. Bookend the convention with GWoT news, and kill the bounce.
The Bush ‘04 campaign was the most remarkable one I’ve ever seen.
They had the clearly losing hand, made some pretty counter-intuitive decisions, and spun that losing hand right round like a record, baby.
—–
“And Petey shows his true colours. Soft and buttery, indeed.”
Bush screwed the pooch on the ‘04 debates, if that makes you feel any better. All stringy meat and gristle.
It’s weird. In both 2000 and 2004, the guy who won the debates lost the popular vote.
August 18th, 2008 at 3:13 am
Hopefully Obama will be able to trade off his charisma in the same way it looks like Bill Clinton was able to trade off his own during the 1992 convention.
Clinton had a successful convention, but the reason the bump was so large was because Ross Perot, who was polling around 25%, dropped out of the campaign the same day Clinton was giving his nomination speech. That gave Clinton the chance to suck up an over-sized chunk of the Perot vote.
Later, Perot re-entered and took most of that vote back. Overall, the effect of Perot’s candidacy on the ‘92 race was mixed and is difficult to interpret, but there’s no doubt that the timing of his summer withdrawal helped Clinton’s post-convention bounce tremendously.
August 18th, 2008 at 7:55 am
Back in the day, all three networks used to cover the conventions wall-to-wall. So, before most people had cable TV, the convention was pretty much the only thing on, except for maybe a Gunsmoke rerun on channel 55.
These days, the only people watching the conventions are the bases of each party, which is why the Republicans’ quadrennial red-meat buffets make a fair amount of sense.
August 18th, 2008 at 8:44 am
Well, okay. But I’m far from convinced the convention in and of itself actually does much for the candidate’s favor. I think it’s far more likely that a huge chunk of people aren’t paying much attention until August/convention time. Now you throw politics all over the TV and newspaper- voila… bounce-mania. But does it matter if it’s a good convention or bad convention? Probably not too much.
Along the same lines, this notion dovetails nicely with Matt’s ongoing frustration with misinterpretation of early polling or small polling variations. Indeed, Obama leading by 6 points or 2 points doesn’t matter much in July for several reasons but also because people by and large don’t care that much in July. We’re a nation of procrastinators. Political junkies get caught in this bubble where small gaffe or TV ad is overanalyzed as if everyone in the country follows these things so closely. But that’s just not the case. It’s most especially not the case for undecideds.
August 18th, 2008 at 10:29 am
Another thing that will be nice about the convention, and which should probably help Obama, is that he’ll have an oportunity for a long, grand-scope speech. For months now we’ve just had chunks of his stump speech and random answers to interview questions. He’s much better with a well written, prepared speech.
August 19th, 2008 at 2:36 pm
# Petey Says:
August 18th, 2008 at 2:24 am
I agree with aleks.
Now you’re being nasty.
August 19th, 2008 at 2:46 pm
I bet by the end of the Convention most people won’t know whether Hillary or Obama is the damn nominee.
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